Outsiders
by Tiny Octopus
Summary: Makoto Hanamiya discovers that he has a lot in common with one of the other members of the Disciplinary Committee in all of the worst ways.
1. Chapter 1

**My headcanon is that Makoto has the entire school convinced he's a good person and a model student, and that he uses his affiliation on the Disciplinary Committee to do whatever he wants.**

**This is written with a focus on Makoto and will contain his condescending attitude towards most everyone he encounters, so the narrative might be a little disturbing at some points.**

**Warnings for coarse language, dark themes, and not nearly as much basketball as there probably should be, though I promise to squeeze some in.**

* * *

For those who don't know Makoto Hanamiya well, his affiliation with the Disciplinary Committee seems like a terrible mistake. A branch of the student council, the Disciplinary Committee is made up of students who have dedicated their high school careers to upholding school policy, hyper-intellectuals with delusions of grandeur and a desire to destroy any and all shreds of deviant behavior and delinquency.

But Makoto's teammates, who know him only as well as he's let them know him, have realized by now that he's right at home with the committee. It allows him to be the first line of defense against rule breakers, the final authority on uniform neatness and hair checks, and it's up to him to administer proper punishment. There isn't a Kirisaki Daiichi student who doesn't pale at the sight of one of the committee members coming down the hall, and there isn't anything Makoto enjoys more than making people as uncomfortable as possible. So really, it makes sense for him to be part of the committee; not because he gives a shit about school rules, but because he gets to do exactly what he wants to do and is even rewarded for doing it.

Of course, even that would get boring after a while, so Makoto has to change things up now and then to keep it interesting. Blackmail is his favorite game because he always wins; as a committee member, he's the first person to know when someone smuggles makeup or a portable game systems in their school bag, and for the right price, he can be the only person who ever has to know. It's a low-risk game; as far as his teachers are concerned, Makoto is a brilliant model student, and most of his victims are idiots going through their rebellious phases.

When Makoto walks down the hall wearing the Disciplinary Committee armband, crowds part, quiet chatter turns to absolute silence, and he feels like the king of his rightful castle. There are very few things that can bring down his mood in such circumstances; not one of the student council's nosy members or some punk trying to look brave by standing up to him or even those obnoxious meetings he has to attend in order to keep up his image.

He opens the door to the conference room the committee uses after school as their official meeting place, hands in his pocket, wearing a well-practiced smile. "Sorry I'm late," he says, "Practice went a little longer since we have a game coming up."

"Of course," says Nobuo Kurita, the head of the Disciplinary Committee, in a tone of genuine understanding. He's perfectly, painfully average with little more presence than a certain Seiren basketball player, the kind of guy you forget is in the room if he's quiet enough, and yet he has this godlike patience that allows him to put up with the rest of the committee's antics and Makoto's perpetual lateness. He also tends to turn a blind eye to troublemakers, often being far too lenient when he catches someone smoking in the bathroom of "forgetting" to write down who failed uniform inspection, though this has more to do with how close he is to graduating than with actual kindness. Nobuo is a third year on his way out the door and onto bigger and better things, and Makoto is fine with his laziness if it means he gets a shot at the position once it's vacant. If being part of the committee is fun now, he can't imagine how great it would be to be in charge of it.

Makoto takes his seat in the conference room and glances around at the others as Nobuo shuts the door. The Disciplinary Committee only has five members, counting himself and Nobuo. Fuji Kuroda is the walking definition of what a committee member should be; her uniform is always impeccable, her bangs cut straight across and her hair carefully maintained at the same length in a bob cut month after month, eyes framed by rectangular glasses and perpetually narrowed in annoyance at someone's incompetence. She is also the biggest pain in the ass they have, constantly complaining about a lack of vigilance and a decline in the standards of Japanese education.

Yuudai Natsume, who sits next to her, isn't much better. He's a brown noser with a stick up his ass, far less concerned with physical appearance than Fuji but nonetheless overeager to do his job, making out minor incidents to be major offenses.

And then there's Kinaka Daicho.

If there was ever anyone who really, truly did not belong on the committee, it would have to be her. She keeps her hair within a centimeter of the allowed length and scoffs at anyone who doesn't like it, telling them to measure it with a ruler—which Fuji actually does periodically, "just to be sure"—hikes her skirt up so it's a little too short, and makes a sport out of seeing how long it takes until Fuji or Yuudai snap at her for chewing gum during meetings. She goes out of her way to be a nuisance to the other members, and it really makes Makoto wonder just what the hell she thinks she's doing, and if she might be in it for all the same reasons he is and just isn't as good at hiding it.

Kinaka, for all of her difficulty, isn't treated any better or worse than the other committee members. The entire group seems to only just tolerate each other's presences, Nobuo being the only one in the room still smiling after the end of a meeting after Makoto has made a snide remark and Yuudai has called him out on it and Fuji has told them both to shut up and Kinaka has been focusing on filing her nails the whole time so she doesn't really know what's going on.

Makoto wonders, honestly, how anybody at all can doubt he belongs there with Kirisaki Daiichi's finest.

He wonders this sarcastically, of course.

"Now," Nobuo says as he sits down, "I know everyone wants to get right to discussing the budget and the computer club's blatant wasting of funding, but there's something more immediate we need to address. Our colleagues on the student council informed me today that the 50,000 yen produced during the fundraiser at the cultural festival is not where they left it."

There's a resounding silence. Kinaka even stops filing her nails and uncrosses her legs, eyes on the head of the committee with a brow raised in question.

"Not where they left it?" Makoto repeats, asking what everyone is thinking, "Are they implying that they lost it, or that it was stolen?"

"The latter," Nobuo answers.

"This goes far beyond typical delinquency," Yuudai says, "It's much more severe," and despite his subdued tone, his eyes are shining with excitement and his voice is shaking. Makoto is pretty sure he's getting some sort of justice boner over the thought of investigating the theft.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Nobuo says quickly, eager to stomp out any possible scandal while he's still on the committee, and he just manages to regain control of the conversation. "It's important that we review the facts before we jump to any conclusions. The student council has told me that the money was placed on the table in this room last Friday by a teacher shortly after the end of the festival in the early evening. Those involved in the fundraiser, including student council, the culture committee, several clubs, and two teachers, were assembled in the teacher's lounge at the time. The teacher who made the deposit is in a difficult position right now; his reputation is dependent upon the success of our investigation."

The entire room erupts with theories and objections. Something about this strikes Makoto as strange, though. Kirisaki Daiichi doesn't have real trouble; there are no actual delinquents at the school, just a few dumbasses who occasionally try to get attention and wise up as soon as they see Makoto coming. The student council, while full of self-important and self-righteous douchebags, isn't exactly a haven for criminal masterminds. He knows those optimistic losers couldn't find their way out of a paper bag and wouldn't dream of jaywalking, let alone stealing money that isn't theirs. But there was no mention of a break-in, which makes Makoto think that this was an inside job carried out by somebody who would have easy access to the money, and if he assumes the student council is too stupid and the teachers are actually the paragons of justice they claim to be, that only leaves one other group with access to the conference room.

Makoto eyes his fellow committee members; all of them were at the festival and helped with the fundraiser. His eyes pass over Noubo trying to keep the peace, Fuji angrily declaring the slipping morality of Japanese youth in modern society, and Yuudai making a suspect list, ready to begin a witch hunt. And then there's Kinaka, adding her two cents from time to time but mostly smiling nervously at the floor.

Makoto knows guilt when he sees it. His eyes narrow in interest. Kinaka is sadly mistaken if she thinks she can get away with this. Not that Makoto has any interest in telling the others of his suspicions if it doesn't have to come to that. No, she'll be much more useful—and provide much more entertainment—if they can keep this between the two of them. He needs to be absolutely certain before he approaches her, though, which means he needs to learn more about her.

It's the hunt, and it's Makoto's favorite part.

Kinaka notices him staring, and when he offers a smile—all malice, no warmth—her face drains of color and she excuses herself to use the restroom.

Smiling contently to himself, he starts planning the next few days, looking forward to getting to know Kinaka Daicho.


	2. Chapter 2

Makoto's intention the following morning had been to go in, get Kinaka by herself, convince her that he could be a trusted confidant, and spend a few days trying to get a confession out of her. Things do not go so smoothly, of course, but he's surprised at the number of problems that come up.

First of all, Kinaka Daicho is a difficult person to talk to one-on-one. Despite her behavior on the committee, she's well-liked by her classmates and has many friends she talks to between classes, though Makoto notices a distinct lack of close friends when he starts asking around about her.

"Kinaka?" one girl asks when he pulls her aside before class starts, "What do you wanna know?"

"Anything," he says nonchalantly, "We've never really talked before. You two seem to be good friends."

"We talk," the girl shrugs, "But I don't think anyone really knows her that well. She's on the track team, so she's usually busy after school."

Makoto files that away in the back of his head, glancing across the classroom at Kinaka where she's turned in her chair to talk to the girl behind her, both of them laughing about something. His eyes trail to her arms folded over the back of her chair, and down to her legs, the extra skin where she's pulled her skirt up higher. They look strong; it doesn't surprise him that she runs. He takes his seat when the teacher comes in and waits, through every class period, through lunch, and through the end of the day for an opportunity to walk over, but she always has a flock of girls around her, giggling stupidly and talking about J-Pop stars and going for crepes in Harajuku and other dumb shit he doesn't care about. Kinaka looks like a perfectly normal high school girl; even the cattiness she shows at committee meetings is toned down, and Makoto isn't sure which side of her is an act.

At the end of the day, she manages to slip out the door without him catching her alone even once, and Makoto lets her go, deciding he'll just have to change his approach. He manages to snag her files and a few pictures taken at the fundraiser from the office and brings the whole folder with him to practice, sitting on the bench while his team makes lazy baskets from the half-court line. The pictures don't tell him anything he didn't know—they're all of the staff setting up tables and making "peace" signs at the camera, and Kinaka is notably present in the group shot.

"What's that?" Kazuya asks, plopping down next to Makoto on the bench as he pops the gum bubble in front of his face and chews idly.

"Student records for Kinaka Daicho," Makoto says, not looking up from the paper.

"Daicho?" his teammate drawls with a smile, "She's kinda cute. Don't tell me you have an eye on her, too?"

"Someone stole the student council's fundraiser money."

"What? And you think it's her?" Kazuya sighs. "Aw, don't mess her up too much. She's my type."

"I won't if I don't have to." Makoto glances at him with a brow raised. "You've never even mentioned her before today."

Kazuya shrugs. "She's not exactly easy to approach, y'know? If she's not with her posse, she's getting chewed out by Kuroda." He grins again. "I'm not discouraged, though. She keeps coming to games, so she's gotta be interested, right?"

"She comes to games?"

"Yeah. She sits by herself, but she takes off before it's over."

He's never noticed her there before, though he supposes he hadn't really been looking. Makoto returns his attention to the file in his hands. Kinaka's grades are decent, though her math scores are notably high, on part with his even. Notes from her parent-teacher conferences are uniformly positive, and as far as anyone can tell, her family is perfectly normal. It's almost disappointing, partly because he can't find any dark marks in her history that would serve as leverage, and partly because he was really expecting something out of the ordinary. She is described as "cheerful" and "friendly," and there is no mention of the personality he sees at every Disciplinary Committee meeting, no explanation as to why she might suddenly decide to steal charity money.

It's really starting to bother him.

"You said you see her with Kuroda sometimes?" Makoto asks, noticing Kazuya is still lazing around, apparently not interested in practicing anymore now that Kinaka has been brought up.

"Yeah, now and then," he says, "They're not friends or anything, Kuroda just likes to bitch at her about her hair being too long or whatever, like anyone actually cares. She doesn't do it to anybody else nearly as much. I don't know what her problem is."

Makoto pauses, trying to assemble a mental picture of what he knows about Kinaka so far. "So it's seems like Kuroda's out to get her specifically?"

"Pretty much."

"Any idea why?"

Kazuya blows another bubble, and its pops on his nose. He chuckles as he pulls it off with his fingers. "Hell, I dunno. Could be anything. They're pretty different; Kuroda might be jealous. She doesn't have any friends."

Makoto has his doubts but he nods anyway.

"So, hey, captain," Kazuya says sheepishly, "Be gentle with her, alright?"

Makoto shoots him a look that makes the grin on his face become tinged with nervousness. "Hara," he says evenly, "Get your ass back on the court."

* * *

Fuji Kuroda has the seat at the very front of the classroom closest to the teacher's desk, where she quietly bides her time until her perfect attendance, cold intelligence and slave-like work ethic finally lands her the position of class representative. Makoto ignores her for the most part when he isn't at a committee meeting, but today, he goes out of his way to approach her during lunch, finding her with a simple but elegant bento on her desk, a pair of chopsticks held delicately in one hand, and her attention fixed on the book she holds in the other.

She brings to mind the image of _Yamato Nadeshiko, _the perfect Japanese woman; dark-haired, quiet, and submissive. _Until she opens her mouth,_ Makoto thinks, scowling at the mere thought of her constant bitching.

The boy who sits in the desk to her right is in the hallway chatting up a couple of girls, so Makoto slides into the empty seat, flashing the same smile he always uses when he needs to get what he wants from somebody. She continues reading and occasionally chewing on bits of rice, content to ignore him, but Makoto doesn't give up. "Excuse me, Kuroda," he says, voice sickly-sweet, "I was hoping to discuss something with you."

Her eyes drag up from her book and glare at him over the black, rectangular frames of her glasses. "Hanamiya," she greets, sounding almost wary. Inwardly, he frowns; he hasn't given her any reason to distrust him yet. He's very careful with his school persona, which alerts him to Fuji's disposition towards being suspicious of everyone's motives, something he'll have to keep in mind. "What did you want to discuss?"

"Regarding the stolen fundraiser money," he says, lowering his voice a bit, although he's fairly certain their classmates aren't paying attention, "Do you have any suspects in mind?"

She snaps her book shut and places her chopsticks and bento aside, apparently eager to talk business. "Naturally," she says, adjusting her glasses with her index and middle fingers, "Although making accusations this early on will not lend itself to accurate results. I need to do a bit more investigating before I can definitively name a suspect."

"But you do have someone in mind," Makoto urges, smiling a little wider, "It's alright, so do I. I was hoping we could help each other out." It isn't ideal, but Fuji is one of very few people capable of getting Kinaka by herself.

She's still skeptical. "Why come to me?" she asks, "If you're so sure, then shouldn't you go to Kurita?"

"You know as well as I do that's he's become dangerously complacent," Makoto says, inwardly grinning at Fuji's thoughtful expression and the seed of trust planted there. "I couldn't go to Natsume with this, either, because he isn't organized enough. He's determined to name someone guilty as soon as possible without really taking the time to account for all of the facts. And Daicho…."

Fuji is looking at him expectantly.

Makoto feigns a hesitant expression. "I'd rather not implicate anyone so soon," he says, "But I believe she might have ties to the incident. I want to try confronting her; not to make any accusations, but just to talk, see if she tells me anything."

"You've had trouble pulling her aside for a private conversation, no doubt."

"But I hear you're able to do it."

Fuji's eyes sparkly dangerously behind her glasses. "So you'd like my help."

Makoto inwardly groans at how long this is taking. Fuji isn't stupid; far from it, she's incredibly thorough, which is part of what makes dealing with her so difficult. "Yes, I would."

"I see." She crosses her legs and sets her hands one on top of the other over her desk. "Perhaps you'd first be willing to tell me your reasoning for suspecting Daicho in the first place."

She's testing him. Makoto is willing to play along. "Of course," he says, "From what we know so far, I believe we can rule out the culture committee and the clubs that helped with the fundraiser. The conference room wasn't broken into, so someone who had a key would be the only one able to get in and out without drawing attention. Therefore, it would have to have been one of the teachers, or someone in our own committee."

"Why do you think that?"

"You were all at the fundraiser," Makoto says, "Natsume and Kurita took shifts at the fundraiser desk and you were assigned to one of the booths, but Daicho didn't have a particular assignment. She could have wandered off at any point."

Fuji is quiet for a long time. "And I suppose you were at basketball practice at the time. That does only leave one option."

Makoto frowns. "Am I on the list of possible suspects?"

"Not anymore." Fuji uncrosses her legs. "The best time to catch Daicho is at the end of the day. I can intercept her before she meets with her colleagues, and you can move in after that." As he gets up to leave, she stops him with a, "Oh, and Hanamiya?" He looks down and finds her eyes narrowed. "This may be a collaborative effort, though I would appreciate you not take more than your fair share of the credit."

As in, _I get all the credit for this._ Makoto could care less; he's not willing to throw himself at his teacher's feet to become class representative, so she can have it. "Of course. Thank you for your help, Kuroda."

She goes back to ignoring him.

If Fuji weren't such a tool, Makoto thinks they would probably get along pretty well.

* * *

True to her word, Fuji tracks down and corners Kinaka by the shoe lockers, and the giggling girls headed in her direction turn tail when they see the disciplinary committee's queen bitch interrogating their friend. Makoto meets Fuji's eyes over Kinaka's shoulders, and makes his way over when she nods.

"Daicho?" Makoto asks, relishing the way she flinches when Fuji starts to leave and she realizes it's just the two of them.

"Hanamiya," she says with a nervous laugh, "Hey. What's up?"

"Not much. I just wanted to talk a little bit." He flashes a smile. "You're a first year, aren't you? That's pretty impressive. I think you're the youngest person on the Disciplinary Committee."

Her face flushes and she starts twirling her hair around her finger. "Thanks," she says with a smile, and Makoto can see what Kazuya likes so much. She's got a cute face and a good, athletic figure, and even though she's not really his type, he doesn't think she's all that bad on the eyes. "But that's not really what you want to talk about, right?"

Makoto pauses. "What?"

"You want to talk about the money." She smiles coyly. "Because you think I stole it."

He's thrown off guard for all of half a second before he recovers. "I never said that."

"You didn't have to," she says, and her smile twists into a smirk, eyes narrowing, "You've been watching me ever since Kurita announced the theft, and I saw you talking to Kuroda earlier. I _let_ you get the chance to talk to me alone."

Despite himself, Makoto finds a grin workings its way onto his face. "So you're admitting to it."

"Of course not." She frowns, mock-hurt evident on her face. "I'm shocked you would approach me with an accusation like that, Hanamiya. I would never dream of stealing anything. Do you have anything to back up your claims?"

Makoto slams his fist into the lockers beside her head and leans in, trapping her body between him and the wall. "Stop being a smartass, Daicho," he murmurs, "If you don't cooperate, you can bet I'll find some."

She blinks up at him, expression slipping into yet another mask, this one of fake fear. "But Hanamiya," she says theatrically, clasping her hands together, "What would happen if the school found out about the way you play basketball?"

"You're going to find out that I'm not as patient as I seem at committee meetings," he says, "You keep making empty threats, you're not going to like what happens."

"Empty?" she repeats, eyes narrowing, "Funny. I guess you never noticed me at your games. I go to all of them, Hanamiya. Every single one. I have a pretty good vantage point from the student section for recording videos."

Makoto doesn't let the taunt get to him. His team is nothing if not careful about the way they play, and even if somebody draws a connection between the high rate of injuries for opposing teams, nobody has ever brought forth any proof. She must be bluffing.

But it might be in his best interest to pretend to give her the upper hand.

He hesitates. "Is that right?" he asks slowly.

Kinaka's smirk widens and she puts a hand flat on his chest, pushing him back enough so they're no longer sharing the same air. "New deal, Hanamiya," she says, "You don't say anything, and neither will I. That's fair, isn't it?"

He scowls.

"Nice try," she says, starting to walk past him, "But you're not the only one who plays dirty."

He lets her go for now, watching her skirt swish around her knees. Makoto will let her think she's won for now. He's patient, he can do this quietly. He was going to go easy on her before, but it's become personal, and he just can't forgive people who threaten his reputation with the basketball team.

Kinaka smirks back over her shoulder and blows a kiss as she leaves.

Makoto smirks back.

* * *

**In this story: High school students acting like criminal masterminds.**


	3. Chapter 3

Makoto pushes off the ground almost furiously and slams the ball into the basket hard enough to make it shake long after he's landed again. Behind him, Kentarou lets out a long whistle. "Damn, what's up with you today?" he asks, "That's the fourth one you've sunk like that."

"Is it a girl?" Hiroshi guesses with a smirk, "You get dumped, captain?"

"Doubtful," Koujirou mutters, "If anyone, Hanamiya would be doing the dumping."

Makoto dribbles back to the half court line and lines up for a shot when he hears Kazuya pop a bubble behind him. "Kinaka, right?" he drawls, "Did you talk to her? What happened?"

"I'm starting to think you should be dealing with her instead of me," Makoto grunts as he takes the shot, not bothering to keep looking to see if it goes in, turning to glance up at Kazuya, "Since you like her so goddamn much."

Kazuya grins sheepishly. "I told you, she's my type."

"What's your type? Conniving? Deceitful? Two-faced?"

His teammates glance at one another with nervous smiles. "Naw," Kazuya says, "That sounds like you, and that'd just be weird."

"Fuck off," Makoto mutters, turning to retrieve the ball, only to find Koujirou holding it.

"I'm curious, too," he says, "What did happen?"

"Since when did you all become such nosy bastards?" Makoto snaps.

"Since somebody got the best of you," Kazuya shrugs.

Makoto whirls around and grabs the taller boy by the collar of his basketball uniform, yanking him down so they're at the same height. "She did not 'get the best of me,'" he growls, "I'm just letting her think that."

Kazuya makes an intelligent decision, putting his hands up in a pacifying gesture. "Sorry," he says, "My mistake."

Seemingly satisfied, Makoto releases him and turns away, putting his hands up to ask for a pass from Koujirou, "You said Kinaka comes to all of our games," he notes, "Tell me if you see her at the match tomorrow. I need to have a word with her."

"Better watch it, Hara," Kentarou jeers, "He's after your woman."

"The hell I am," Makoto mutters, lining up another shot.

"Don't worry, captain," Kazuya says, clapping a hand on his shoulder and throwing him off, the ball bouncing off of the side of the basket, "You'll find a girl who can look past your awful personality someday. Probably because hers'll be twice as bad."

"You're really pushing it, Hara."

The taller player laughs and lets him go.

* * *

There aren't any suspicious-looking recordings in the archives of their previous games, so if Kinaka has anything on him, she's keeping it to herself. Makoto still has his doubts that she was telling the truth, but she's fooled him once; he doesn't intend to be caught off-guard twice.

He's just come back out of the locker room after changing out of his uniform when he finds Fuji standing at the end of the hall with her arms crossed over her chest. "Kuroda," he greets as he approaches. She doesn't step to the side and he stops midstride. She's glaring up at him.

"Hanamiya," she returns coolly, "It's come to my attention that the Kirisaki Daiichi basketball team employs some rather questionable methods in order to win."

His eyes narrow. "Is that right?" he asks, "Now I wonder who told you that? Do we know any liars in common?"

"If you want to look innocent, you shouldn't become so defensive," she retorts, "Regardless of her activities, Daicho is still a member of the Disciplinary Committee, and it is my responsibility to investigate claims such as these."

"Come on, Kuroda," he scoffs, "It's obvious what's going on here. She knows we're onto her, and she's throwing a distraction at us to keep us busy."

Fuji doesn't look impressed. "It isn't as though she's going anywhere," she says, "The investigation into Daicho's activities will continue; you'll see to that. Meanwhile, Hanamiya, you and the rest of the Kirisaki Daiichi team will also be under investigation. I hope for your sake the game tomorrow is played fairly. I'll be attending to verify for myself."

He stretches a smile across his face. "Well, Kuroda, I'm glad you'll be attending one of our games. I hope you enjoy it."

"Please," she rolls her eyes and walks past him.

He glares at her back. He's a head taller and about twenty kilograms heavier; it's surprising that she'd even try to threaten him, but apparently she's fearless. Makoto suspects that she's under the impression that he wouldn't hit a girl, and while he'd rather be less direct than that, she'll discover she's sorely mistaken if it comes down to it. Although she wears black stockings underneath her skirt, Makoto notices her legs are a bit like Kinaka's, and he wonders if she can really be athletic. She doesn't have Kinaka's healthy tan, her face's pallor just a shade above sickly. She looks like the type who spends her summers in her room studying.

Makoto makes a mental note to inquire about her while he's trying to outwit Kinaka, discreetly if possible. The last thing he needs is more reasons for her to be suspicious of him.

* * *

Makoto wonders if there's something on his face calling all of the most unpleasant people in Kirisaki Daiichi over to talk to him, because the next morning, Kinaka Daicho saunters over and leans against his desk, smiling down at him. "Hey, Hanamiya," she says, "I hear Kuroda's coming to the game tomorrow."

He refuses to react, keeping his gaze out the window.

He can see Kinaka pouting by her reflection in the glass, and the next thing he knows, she's seated herself on the corner of his desk. Makoto looks at her more out of surprise than anything else, and her eyes narrow as her smile takes on a flirtatious edge. "You're a sore loser."

"I thought we had a deal," Makoto says lowly.

"Right," she rolls her eyes, "If you're anything like me, Hanamiya—and you are, at least a little—then you weren't gonna honor that anyway. Drop the act, you're on the Disciplinary Committee for all the same reasons I am, right?"

"And what would those reasons be?"

She leans back on the desk, allowing Makoto the full view of the sick grin that overtakes her features, one not unlike the sort he has when he knows a match is going to end badly for the other team's ace player. "Because you like having that power over people."

Makoto is pretty sure he hates Kinaka now. Kazuya's prediction that his girlfriend would have a worse personality than him is woefully inaccurate—there's no way in hell he's subjecting himself to that. "You'd better watch your back."

"I could say the same to you," she says, jumping off the desk as the teacher walks in.

The hours until the game pass by far too slowly, and Makoto spends most of it fantasizing about his revenge.

* * *

Makoto plays angry.

He makes a show of it, having warned his team not to even attempt their usual tricks, relying on skill alone and still manages to put his team twelve points ahead by halftime. "Is Daicho still here?" he asks as he reaches for his water bottle.

Kazuya cranes his neck and gives the crowd a once-over. "Yeah," he says, "Still recording with her phone."

"Let her," he mutters, "She's not gonna see anything interesting."

"Didn't you say another Disciplinary Committee member was supposed to be here, too? I haven't seen anybody else I recognize."

"Doesn't matter." He takes a long drink and glances over at Kinaka who catches his eye and gives a cute wave. "Hey, Hara," he says, "You've seen her at every game, right? Does she always just record with her phone?"

"Yeah."

He doubts she's put the footage anywhere; she's probably holding onto it until she needs to make good on her threats. That is, if she even has anything incriminating from previous games. He takes a long look at where she's sitting and the nearest exit, trying to plan the best course of action.

"After the game's over," he says, "I want you all to keep an eye on Daicho. I don't want her leaving with her phone in one piece."

"Might as well have Hara sit this one out," Kentarou says, jabbing him in the side with his elbow, "He wouldn't put a hand on his little girlfriend."

"You don't have to do anything to her," Makoto says, "Corner her if you can. I just want her phone."

The shrill whistle indicating the start of the second half interrupts them and he runs back out onto the court, but he locks eyes with her once more and makes a point to smile.

The game isn't necessarily close, but their victory is slightly narrower than what Makoto is used to. He doesn't dwell on it; he doesn't bother changing out of his uniform, just grabs his bag out of his locker and rushes out the door, his teammates taking the other exits to cover more ground. He's sure he sees Kinaka up ahead, occasionally popping up in the sea of people before she disappears again. He tries to push his way through until he's outside again, glancing around frantically, trying to find her in the rapidly thinning crowd.

He spots her going around the building, trying to slip by unnoticed on a dark street, and he approaches at a brisk pace. She must hear him coming, because she glances over her shoulder and her eyes widen. She turns back like she plans to take off running, but instead runs face-first into Kazuya, who's just come out of the side doors.

"Oops," he laughs, grabbing her forearm before she can run. "Didn't see you there."

"Let me go," she demands, holding her phone protectively to her chest with her other hand.

"Sure," Makoto says, smiling at the obvious distress on her face as the rest of his team joins them. He holds out his hand. "Give me your phone and you're free to go."

"Fuck off."

Makoto laughs. He grabs her wrist in a grip hard enough to leave a bruise and pulls it towards him. "That was me asking nicely," he hisses.

She swallows nervously but doesn't let go, gaze moving over his shoulder to something behind him. Hesitantly, he turns around, wondering if his luck can possibly be that bad.

"Hanamiya," Fuji says darkly, lights from the school bouncing off of her glasses and hiding her eyes. "What exactly is going on here?"

Apparently, it can.

His hands fly away from Kinaka like she's fire, and Kazuya backs off. "Kuroda," he greets in turn, "Did you enjoy the game?" He honestly doesn't have an excuse ready, but before he has to think of one, Fuji's attention shifts.

"I'm afraid I didn't make it. I was the only committee member taking my duties seriously this evening, though I was supposed to have help." She's not looking at him anymore. "Daicho." Kinaka doesn't even flinch, recognizing an opportunity. Makoto doubts she's ever been so happy to see Fuji in her entire life. "Care to explain what you're doing here when you should be in the conference room aiding me in the organization process of last week's reports?"

"You caught me, I was at the game," Kinaka says shamelessly, "But I have some footage of our very own basketball team that might interest you."

Makoto acts immediately, whirling around and grabbing the phone from her hands before she can react, scrolling through the recordings until he reaches the "delete all" option and presses it without hesitation.

"Well?" Fuji asks impatiently, holding her hand out, "Let's see it."

Makoto smiles innocently over his shoulder and turns around to hand it to her, and she glances down at the blank screen with confusion before raising a brow at Kinaka. "There's nothing here."

"He deleted it!" Kinaka insists.

Makoto glances back at her with a frown. "I'm shocked you would accuse me of something like that," he says in an ironic echo of her words from just the other day. It's hard for him not to smile at the wide-eyed glare on her face.

_Payback's a bitch,_ he thinks triumphantly.

Fuji hands the phone back to Kinaka, an unamused expression on her face. "I don't trust either of you," she says, "Nor am I in the mood to deal with either of you. Daicho, I expect you to be performing your contribution to the committee tomorrow in the interest of retaining your position. And Hanamiya, I suggest you continue playing basketball in a manner that will not raise suspicion."

"Continue?" he asks, "What do you mean continue? How do you know we played fairly tonight if you weren't here?"

"I thought I would give you the benefit of the doubt, unless you'd prefer I not?"

"And how did you get here so fast?" Makoto presses, "If Daicho was supposed to help you, why would you wait to come get her until the end of the game?" Fuji opens her mouth to say something, but never speaks. The look on her face is something like the one Makoto sees on students who realize with a sinking feeling that their excuse for wandering the halls doesn't make sense. He's caught her in a lie. "You _were_ at the game."

"That's irrelevant," she says sharply.

"Oh, it's definitely relevant. Why would you lie about that, Kuroda? Do you have something to hide?"

"Don't be ridiculous." But she says it as she's hurrying away, and Makoto feels like laughing he's so happy. Kinaka stares in awe.

"Wow," she says, "I don't think I've ever seen Kuroda so flustered." She smiles. "So about that deal I made and then broke…."

Makoto smirks down at her. "I'm sure we can work something out," he says smoothly, "But we're playing by my rules now, Daicho."

She frowns. "You don't play by the rules."

"Exactly. So it's in your best interest to do as I ask."

She looks wary but agrees nonetheless, apparently knowing when she's been beaten. Kinaka, Makoto has learned, isn't dumb, which is really a shame, because she's not all that hard on the eyes and he thinks he might've asked her out under different circumstances. As it is, she's a huge pain in the ass, but as long as he can keep an eye on her, he thinks she could be useful.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, as they say. Makoto looks at Kinaka and the glare she shoots at Kazuya when he tries putting an arm over her shoulder and thinks the saying is especially appropriate for the situation.

* * *

**I'll be out of town next weekend, so no updates then. Sorry!**


	4. Chapter 4

"As you all have probably heard by now," Nobuo says, "Mr. Terashita's alibi has cleared him in our investigation of the missing fundraiser money, though the money itself has yet to turn up. Thoughts on this?"

Kinaka rolls her eyes, picking dirt out from under her nails and flicking it off of her finger. "It happened a week ago. If it was some kid here, they probably already spent it."

"Thank you for that, Daicho. Anybody else?"

Nobody says a word.

Nobuo sighs tiredly. He's probably been awake three days straight studying for college entrance exams. Makoto thinks he needs to just quit the committee; he's trying way too damn hard. "Then I suppose we're done here."

As everyone's leaving, Makoto catches Kinaka's eyes and makes a gesture indicating he wants to talk outside. He feels Fuji's eyes on his back every step he takes out the door, and he ends up going down the hall a ways before stopping, not that a few extra feet is going to stop her from coming over and being a nuisance. "Did you really spend it already?" he whispers.

Kinaka rolls her eyes. "Of course not."

"What did you even want it for in the first place?"

"So I could afford food for my starving family."

Makoto crosses his arms and waits.

"You're no fun," she pouts.

"Don't get cute with me, Daicho. You're only still walking free because I haven't turned you in."

"You don't have proof."

"I told you, I'll find some if you push me."

"Now who's making empty threats?" she asks, hands on her hips, "You might've shown Kuroda up last night, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna be your bitch."

"I never expected anything even resembling obedience from you," Makoto scoffs, "Now listen. I think we can both benefit from this arrangement. You're obviously aiming for bigger and better things than just dawdling in the Disciplinary Committee and also trying to steer clear of Kuroda. That makes two of us."

"Are you suggesting some kind of," Kinaka's lips curl in disgust, "Partnership?"

"Don't get the wrong idea," Makoto says, "We're not equals in this. You do what I tell you to do. But that doesn't mean there isn't anything in it for you." More than anything, he figures some incentive will make her marginally easier to handle.

She crosses her arms over her chest. "I'm listening."

"You have an eye for observation. I want you to get some dirt on Kuroda."

She raises a brow. "Um, okay. Why?"

"Nowhere in this new deal did I include questioning what I tell you to do."

Kinaka's eyes narrow but she stomps off without an argument and Makoto is left smirking in her wake. Things are lining up so nicely now; he has the thief under his thumb, and as long as he can keep her there, she can help him take care of the increasingly nosy Fuji, maybe even get her off of the Disciplinary Committee and out of his hair.

In the meantime, he has some investigating of his own to do.

* * *

Fuji Kuroda's student file is absolutely pristine without a single mark in her entire academic or personal history. Her grades are excellent and her teachers have made several notes praising her work ethic and her family's involvement in her education. So, like Kinaka, everything looks completely normal even though he knows there has to be more to it.

"What're you lookin' at today?" Kazuya asks as he saunters by, leaning over Makoto's shoulder to look at the folder in his lap.

"Not Daicho," he says, swatting at him, "Get back to practice."

He's ignored. "Kuroda, huh?" he asks, pointing at Fuji's unsmiling class photo paperclipped to the upper right-hand corner. "Can you believe that shit last night? She's like half your height and she was trying to be intimidating, freakin' hilarious."

The gym becomes quiet, and Makoto glances up to see Koujirou holding the ball, completely still as he stares back at him. "Kuroda?" he says, "What're you interested in her for?"

"Don't tell me you like her," Makoto growls, "Because if you do, I don't care. I'm tired of her bullshit."

"No, it's not like that," he says, "We just went to the same middle school is all."

For some reason, Makoto isn't surprised. He looks at the dead eyes of Koujirou and thinks about Fuji's dark, perpetually narrowed ones, and wonders what the hell kind of school it was. "You two were friends?"

"Not especially, no. I tolerated her, she tolerated me. We did class projects together, that sort of thing."

"What do you know about her?"

Koujirou stares into space, seemingly lost in thought. "Well…not a whole lot. She's difficult to get to know."

"Believe me, I've noticed that by now."

"She's easy to miss, too. If you're not paying attention, she seems to just vanish," Koujirou adds, "Kind of like misdirection, I guess."

"Misdirection?" Makoto repeats, "Does she play basketball?"

"No. She used to run track, though."

"Track?" Kazuya lets out a bark of laughter. "No way. She doesn't look like she sees the sun more than once a year."

"She used to," Koujirou shrugs, "Pretty sure she didn't continue into high school."

"Are you both about done standing around gossiping?" Makoto snaps, and the conversation dies, the sounds of sneakers squeaking across the gym floor and dribbling filling the silence.

* * *

At the next committee meeting, Makoto finds Nobuo with an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face. "I've been giving it some thought," he says solemnly, "And I think it may be possible that the culprit is on one of the student committees, perhaps the student council." Yuudai looks momentarily taken aback, but Fuji doesn't even pretend to look surprised. From where she's lounging in her chair, Kinaka stares at the clock, waiting for the meeting to be over. "Please don't interpret this as a lack of trust," Nobuo says, and Makoto starts paying closer attention, already knowing what he's going to say and wondering how it'll play out, "But I'd like to get a statement from all of you regarding your whereabouts during and after the festival. Please include someone who can verify your location, as I will be consulting them."

He glances curiously at Kinaka, who looks significantly more confident than he thought she would. In fact, she volunteers to go first, sitting up straight in her chair and folding her arms over the table. "Not a problem," she says lightly, "I rotated between booths to help as many people as possible during the festival. At the end of the day, I helped Mr. Terashita with tearing everything down. You can ask him, or any of the other teachers who were there."

"I was at the information desk with you," Yuudai says, looking at Nobuo as if he's offended, "And afterwards, I went with the culture committee to help them carry their equipment back."

All eyes then rotate to Fuji, who uncrosses her legs. "I spent the entirety of the fundraiser at the archery club's booth assisting them with whatever they needed, and I helped them with their equipment at the end. You may speak with them for verification."

"I was at basketball practice," Makoto says simply, "My teammates can vouch for me."

Nobuo nods. "Thank you, everyone."

Never one to miss details, Fuji sits up straight and says, "Excuse me, Kurita, but perhaps you'd also be willing to give us a statement on your whereabouts and a witness. Not out of a lack of trust, of course." Her tone makes it sound like she's trying to joke around, but her face remains exactly the same. Makoto thinks it might be stuck that way.

"Of course," Nobuo says, "I was with Natsume at the information desk, and I also assisted in clean up and tear down with Mr. Terashita and the others."

Makoto is honestly surprised; Kinaka has an alibi and is apparently confident that Nobuo won't turn up anything suspicious if he asks the teachers. Why would she admit to stealing the money if she knew she could cover it up easily?

The meeting is exceptionally short, ending soon after that. Makoto is startled when Fuji pulls him aside to talk, leading him down the hall a ways and looking around to make sure no one is standing nearby to listen. "You heard that just now," Fuji says quietly, "Daicho has an alibi. How does she have an alibi?"

"If she was quick enough, she might have slipped away without anyone noticing," Makoto says with a shrug, "She could've just said she was going to use the bathroom."

"Or you were wrong."

Makoto isn't sure he heard her right at first. "Excuse me?"

"Your judgment was incorrect because of a lack of evidence," she says, "Or perhaps it was incorrect because you're attempting to shift attention away from yourself."

Makoto is pretty good at keeping up appearances, but he's about had it with Fuji altogether. "Did you not hear what I said during the meeting?" he demands, "I was at practice the whole time."

"But you are a Disciplinary Committee member," she insists, "You could have easily left practice, told a staff member not involved with the fundraiser that you needed to get into the conference room, and been in and out before anyone knew."

"Does that make any sense, Kuroda? How would I have known when the money would be there? How would I have even known that the money was there at all?"

"Let me see your bag."

Makoto rolls his eyes. "If I had stolen it, Kuroda, I don't think I'd be dumb enough to leave it in my school bag for a week."

Fuji glares and holds out a hand expectantly. "The longer you stall, the more suspicious you look."

Makoto practically tosses his bag at her. "I've got nothing to hide."

She bends down to her knees and opens the bag, meticulously removing the contents and stacking them on the floor. Makoto is trying to keep calm, reminding himself that he needs to uphold a good image with the Disciplinary Committee, when he notices Fuji suddenly stop, looking up at him with accusing eyes. "Nothing to hide?" she mocks, "Is that right?"

She retracts her hand from his bag and he freezes.

Clutched in her hand is an envelope with several hundred thousand yen sticking out of the top.

"At a loss for words?" Fuji asks, standing up straight and leaving the contents of his bag spread out on the floor, "Just as well. I doubt there's anything you can say now that will convince me you aren't responsible for the theft."

"This is a mistake," Makoto says, "Somebody must've put it in my bag. Somebody set me up. I-!" Movement catches his eye, and he glances behind Fuji, where Kinaka Daicho is shifting in the shadows, phone held in front of her smirking face. He almost loses it then, fists shaking at his sides as he tries to restrain himself from stomping over to her, taking that fucking phone and smashing it into a million little pieces.

Fuji follows his gaze and finds Kinaka standing there. He expects her to raise a brow, ask, "Daicho?" in that obnoxious, chiding tone, but instead, she nods, and Kinaka walks away, apparently dismissed. "This situation could be extremely damaging to your reputation, and perhaps your status as a member of the Kirisaki Daiichi basketball team, as well as the Disciplinary Committee," she says, slipping the envelope into her own bag, "So, Hanamiya, what would you be willing to do to ensure my silence?"

His eyes widen. There's no way. There's no fucking way. "You…what…?"

"I'm not going to repeat myself."

He thinks back to what Koujirou said about Fuji having been a track runner at one point, and about how she could easily slip away undetected. Now that he thinks about it, he's pretty sure he didn't see her in any of the photos from the fundraiser, not that he'd really cared at the time because he'd been looking for Kinaka.

Ironically enough, she was right. He'd jumped to conclusions and just assumed it had been Kinaka, but it hadn't been. She'd been a distraction, willing to quietly take the fall and make Makoto think he was ahead. That's why she'd admitted to stealing the money so quickly.

"I'll take your silence as an admission of defeat," Fuji says, "As long as you do as I ask, we won't have any problems."

"Just you wait, Kuroda," he seethes, "Just you fucking wait."

"I'd watch your tongue, Hanamiya, you're on incredibly thin ice right now." And with that, she whips around and walks away, leaving Makoto wondering what the fuck just happened.

Kinaka and Fuji were in on it _together_. He doesn't know if this is a new development, if Kinaka struck up a deal with Fuji in exchange for clearing her own name or if this is old and Fuji's constant harassment is part of their act. Either way, Makoto knows he has work to do. No more deals, no more attempted partnerships.

Fuji Kuroda's life, as she knows, it over.


	5. Chapter 5

"What is the significance of the passage with the snake and the caged birds?" their teacher asks.

Makoto stares at the back of Fuji's head as her hand flies immediately into the air and she stands when she's called upon. He hasn't really been paying much attention to class today; he's much more concerned about Fuji and the uncomfortable position she's put him in. He isn't sure what he's going to make her do first when he's back in control of the situation; without a doubt, he's going to tarnish her reputation, rip any chance of becoming class representative from her hands, and get her kicked off of the disciplinary committee. He won't do it right away, though. He'll wait a day, get her hopes up by pretending to forgive her, and the next morning she'll come in to find her entire academic career destroyed.

Makoto doesn't know what's come over him lately. Kinaka and Fuji are deviations from the norm in many ways, most notably in that they're the first people in a long time to successfully hold something over his head. He hasn't been in this situation since junior high, and his frustration is all-consuming, eliminating his motivation to do anything else. He has practice tonight, and he's thinking about skipping because he's that angry.

"The caged birds are symbolic of the character Otama," Fuji says, voice quiet but firm. It's almost disgusting how sure of herself she is. "Otama is like a caged bird, restricted by societal expectations and her role as a mistress to Suezo. The snake eats the birds, refusing to relinquish the one in its mouth even after it has been killed." Her back is turned to Makoto and he wonders what kind of face she's making right now. He thinks she probably looks smug. "This represents Suezo and his hold on Otama, the way he has condemned her to a life of isolation and slowly strangles her happiness from her, his grip unrelenting."

Makoto glances up when he hears her voice waver on the last word, but thinks he must have imagined it. The teacher expresses how impressed he is and gives Fuji words of praise, and she silently takes her seat once again. Makoto rests his elbow on the desk and leans against his palm, waiting for class to end. He sees Fuji's shoulders shift as she dutifully takes notes, face buried in her work, oblivious to his glare and all of the things he has in store for her.

At the end of the day, Fuji neatly packs her bag and strides over to Makoto's desk, staring down at him over her glasses. "You have practice tonight, correct, Hanamiya?" she asks, middle and index finger adjusting the frame as it slides down her nose. "When you're finished there, I'd appreciate it if you could finish up my portion of the paperwork from last week's committee meeting. "

"Well, of course," Makoto says so sweetly and with such a wide smile that she recoils in disgust, "I _live_ for the committee, you know. I'd just _love_ to do your paperwork."

"I don't appreciate the attitude."

Makoto shrugs. "Added bonus."

Apparently deciding she'd rather not spend a second longer in his presence, Fuji turns on her heel, skirt twirling and hair whipping around, and leaves for the day.

* * *

"Furuhashi," Makoto orders the second he sets foot on the court, "You're telling me everything you know about Kuroda."

As usual, practice is slow, and most of the team is lazing around, only occasionally passing or making a basket. Kentarou is fast asleep on the bench, a magazine over his face, and Koujirou is sitting next to him with a book in his hands. He glances up when Makoto addresses him, looking mildly annoyed. At least, Makoto thinks so. He's never been very good at reading Koujirou's face, since it always looks the same.

"Give up on Daicho?" Kazuya teases on Kentarou's other side, a portable game system in his hand making little beeping sounds. "She too much for you?"

"Change of plans," Makoto says, "Daicho's not a priority anymore. Kuroda's the real problem."

"Really?" Koujirou asks, snapping his book shut and setting it in his lap to give Makoto his full attention.

"Yeah. Is that surprising?"

"Not especially. I don't think I can really help you, though. We went to the same school before, but I didn't really get to know her that well." Koujirou pauses. "Although…."

Makoto raises a brow

"Kuroda has an ex-boyfriend," he continues, "He's the only person I know of who's actually been over to her house and met her family, so if anyone knows anything, it's him."

"Kuroda dated someone?" Makoto asks in disbelief.

"Hm. Yeah. It was pretty surprising at the time," Koujirou says, his tone and expression not betraying any surprise if he actually felt any, "But in hindsight, I guess they got along pretty well."

"Why'd they break up?"

"Hard to say. He was a little older, but that never really seemed to be a problem."

Makoto nods. "Okay. So who is this loser? Does he go here?"

"No. He goes to Touou." Koujirou frowns. "Their point guard, actually."

It takes a few seconds for Makoto to process the information and come up with a face—a serene smile with just a hint of malice hidden behind rectangular glasses—and a name to go with it, and his expression darkens.

_Shoichi Imayoshi._

If Fuji seemed to "get along" with him when they were dating, that's a definite red flag.

"Is there anyone else?" he asks.

Koujirou hesitates. "Well, I guess you could ask Daicho," he says, "She went to the same middle school as us."

"Daicho it is," Makoto mutters, turning on his heel to leave practice early. He really didn't want to deal with Kinaka anymore. Knowing that she played him—pretended to get caught just to lure him in—is bad enough on its own; he doesn't want to see the smug look on her face when he comes back and tells her that he needs her help.

When he considers his options, though, he thinks it'll be significantly more bearable than the alternative.

* * *

Predictably, Kinaka looks like the cat that got the canary, smirking from her perch on his desk when he calls her over to talk the next morning. "I'm sorry, you'll have to speak up so I can hear," she says, "Did you say you wanted help? _My_ help?"

"I need advice," he says slowly, unwilling to let her see how much she's pissing him off, "I need to know how to avoid stepping on Kuroda's toes."

"Come on, Hanamiya," she says dramatically, throwing her arms in the air, "You can be honest with me. You just want to know enough about Kuroda to outsmart her, right?" He glances around to make sure the topic of their conversation isn't hanging around listening, and Kinaka follows his gaze. "She's not here," she laughs, "Stop looking so paranoid."

"You haven't exactly made yourself out to be trustworthy," he mutters.

A grin stretches across her face. "Kind of sucks dealing with people who are just like you, huh?"

Makoto pauses. He supposes he does have a bit in common with Kinaka and Fuji; specifically, things that he really doesn't want to have to deal with. "Yeah. It kind of sucks."

Kinaka crosses her legs and sets her hands in her lap, settling in to get down to business. "So. What do you wanna know?"

"You're going to turn around and tell her I asked, aren't you?"

She shrugs. "That depends on who's making the better offer."

He raises a brow, awaiting clarification.

"Here's the thing about me, Hanamiya," she says, "I don't like to be on the losing side, and Kuroda has never lost."

Makoto allows himself a smile. "She's never played me before."

"She's got you on the defensive, though," Kinaka points out, "And if you haven't noticed, she's got a really good reputation. Being affiliated with her has done wonders for my personal image."

Makoto has noticed that Kinaka's student history makes no mention of her dismissive and generally difficult behavior on the committee, which probably has a lot to do with her teachers assuming things about her. "So that's what's in it for you," he realizes, "You stick with Kuroda, she pulls you to the top along with her."

Kinaka shrugs, apparently finished.

Makoto decides it's his turn to push back. He leans forward, setting a hand on the desk beside Kinaka's hip, and she reels back in surprise. "Doesn't it suck, though?" he asks, "You're at Kuroda's mercy all the time, and you can't step out of whatever bounds she sets or she'll turn on you. If it were me, I think keeping you under my heel like that would be too dangerous."

She narrows her eyes, interested. "Then what would you do?"

Makoto's smile widens. "You said yourself we're on the committee for the same reasons. We like having power over people. Wouldn't you like to actually use some of that power on your own terms, and not just however Kuroda tells you to use it?" He's got her now; Kinaka is paying attention, frowning slightly as she mulls over his words. "If you're worried about maintaining a good reputation, then you can use me."

"You?" she asks incredulously. "What've you got?"

He raises a brow. "I have the second-best test average out of anyone at Kirisaki Daiichi, and I'm an honors student."

"For real?" She sounds genuinely surprised, and Makoto frowns. "So if I help you take down Kuroda," she says thoughtfully, "You'll help me keep up a good image, and I can pretty much do whatever I want again."

Makoto knows it's risky for both of them; at any moment, either of them could turn on the other and report to Fuji to get the other out of their hair. On the other hand, if Fuji has outsmarted both of them already, they really can't afford to work alone. A counterattack with them cooperating would also be more unexpected, giving them an edge. This is all assuming, of course, that Kinaka actually cooperates. Makoto has accounted for that as well, and he intends to put himself in a position where it would be in her best interest to do so.

Finally, she nods. "I guess you've got a deal."

Makoto smiles. "Welcome to the winning side."

"Whoa, you have to be ahead in the game or actually, you know, _win_, to call yourself the winning side," Kinaka scoffs, "But I guess with me on board, we _might_ be able to pull it off."

"First order of business, then; I want you to come by practice tonight and tell me what you know about Kuroda."

She gives a long-suffering sigh and says, "Fine," before hopping off of his desk and going off to her own seat.

It crosses Makoto's mind that she could be trying to pull the same stunt she did before; agreeing all too easily to his demands while secretly planning to rat him out. He's not particularly concerned about it this time, because he's going to operate under the assumption that she fully intends to turn on him and has prepared an appropriate countermeasure. If he takes a hit, so will she, and it'll be worth it for both of them to remain partners for as long as it takes to dethrone Fuji. Kinaka is smart; he's sure she'll make the right decision.

Idly, he thinks that he can still just bite back his pride and ask a certain point guard from Touou for information.

He very quickly decides that it's not worth it.


	6. Chapter 6

To Makoto's surprise, his team is actually practicing when he arrives, but that comes to a screeching halt when he appears in the doorway with Kinaka at his side.

Kazuya is, unsurprisingly, the first to break the silence. "Hey, Daicho," he calls with a grin, "You and coach make up?"

"Sure," she says with a shrug, following Makoto over to the bench where she opens the folder in her hands and skims through the papers inside before handing him a small stack. "This is Kuroda's share."

"You came to practice to do Committee work?" Hiroshi asks.

Makoto raises a brow. "You all need the practice more than I do anyway."

"Getting a little too confident, eh, captain?"

"Hara," Makoto says in warning, but trails off when he notices Koujirou's pointed stare and the way Kinaka is returning it, a strange smiling slowly appearing on her face. "What the hell is with you two?"

"Kourjirou and I were classmates in middle school," Kinaka says, winking in his direction, "Right?"

To Makoto's surprise, his frown actually deepens, the only change he's seen on his face since meeting him. "Yes, we were."

He doesn't really want to know. Holding out a hand, he waits for Kinaka to pass him one of her pencils and gets started on Fuji's paperwork. "Daicho, you were going to tell me about Kuroda," he prompts.

"Right, right." She scribbles a few lines onto her own papers. "Kuroda is kind of…difficult to pin down. It's kind of a long story, but if you don't mind…"

"I want relevant information, not an account of your entire junior high career," he snaps.

"I know, but you kind of need the background to really understand."

With a sigh, he relents. "Fine." He notices his teammates haven't gone back to practice, but doesn't bother scolding them. Kentarou and Hiroshi are pretending they aren't interested, but Kazuya is staring openly and trying to inch closer to the bench, and Koujirou is still looking at Fuji like she killed his dog. He supposes they wouldn't get anything done anyway. "Start talking."

* * *

Kinaka had met Fuji on her first day as a first year student at their junior high school. The latter had been on the student council then and was part of the group helping new students adjust. They didn't talk very long—Fuji walked with her around campus, showing her the clubrooms and the athletics hall and helped her find her homeroom—but something about her just seemed off to Kinaka.

_"Seemed off?" Makoto repeats incredulously, "What the hell does that mean?"_

_"Wow, rude. Can I keep talking, please?"_

_He gives a glare but nods._

In those days, Kinaka was still in the larval stages of developing into the manipulator she is today, so her first instinct when meeting new people was not usually to gather as much dirt on them as possible. But with Fuji, who unsettled her despite her friendly demeanor and the warm smile she wore while showing her around campus—_which Makoto is having a really hard time picturing, much less believing really existed_—she just had to find out what was really going on.

So she decided to become Fuji's friend.

Fuji was quiet and reserved but willing to indulge Kinaka in small talk over lunch and sit together. But getting to know her was difficult; she didn't talk about herself much, giving really generic answers to questions about her interests and hobbies and dodging questions about her family. Koujirou, who ate lunch with Fuji frequently enough that people mistook them for a couple, also made things difficult.

_"He hated my guts from the beginning," Kinaka laughs._

_"Why?"_

_Koujirou doesn't answer, so Kinaka speaks up for him. "He's a lot better at reading people than you might think."_

Despite what he might claim today, at the time, Koujirou had tried to be a friend to Fuji for reasons no one is certain of. It could have been that he felt they were kindred spirits, or that he just felt attached. Regardless, he'd been in Kinaka's situation before, and though he'd given up on getting any closer, he still stayed close by and looked out for her wellbeing.

_Makoto glances over, but Koujirou still refuses to comment. _

Fuji was concerned about one thing and one thing only; her academic performance. Kinaka had watched her fall apart a few weeks before finals, coming in every day to class with dark circles under her eyes from long nights up studying. She'd never really understood it, since Fuji obviously wasn't stupid, but she studied like she seriously expected to fail every test. Nonetheless, by her second year, Kinaka was pretty sure she had Fuji figured out.

Which is where Shoichi Imayoshi came in and had her second-guessing.

_"Imayoshi is kind of hard to explain," Kinaka starts to say._

_"I know about Imayoshi already," Makoto interrupts, "Don't bother explaining."_

_Kinaka looks perturbed but nods._

Fuji met Shoichi at a festival that she attended for student council. Kinaka had been there for fun, happened across her classmate but decided to hang back when she saw her talking to a boy. They didn't talk for very long, but Fuji didn't miss the way Shoichi looked at her, and the way Fuji pointedly didn't return his interested gaze. When the festival stretched on after dark, Shoichi offered to walk her home.

_ "I hear she asked him out the next day," Kinaka says._

_Makoto raises a brow. "The next day? After they talked once?"_

_"Yeah. Then, all of a sudden, she was taking on fewer and fewer student council responsibilities so she could leave a little earlier. Her grades started to slip a little, too."_

The relationship lasts a few months before coming to an abrupt end, so sudden that Kinaka wouldn't have known it had even ended if she hadn't been trying to work her way into Fuji's back pocket over the course of the year. She'd made a comment over lunch about Fuji's boxed lunch looking cuter than usual and asked if she'd been practicing for Shoichi, to which she bluntly stated that they weren't together anymore.

_"She didn't cry about it or anything," Kinaka says, "And she didn't sound all that disappointed. A little angry, maybe, but that's about it."_

After that, things went back to normal, and Fuji was again her usual, predictable self, worrying about nothing but her grades and staying long after class for student council meetings.

* * *

"What was the point of telling me any of that?" Makoto asks irritably.

"There were plenty of important things I just told you," Kinaka argues, "Look, you want the short version? Kuroda is a little more complicated than she'd have you believe. I want to be able to tell you that all she really cares about are her grades or keeping up appearances, but there's more to it than that, and I don't really know everything." She pauses. "But, you know, you could probably ask Ima—!"

"Too much trouble," Makoto cuts in, then turns his attention to his teammates, "You really don't want to say anything, Furuhashi?"

Koujirou's gaze is on the floor. He looks almost uncomfortable.

Makoto's eyes narrow. "You _do _know something," he hisses, stalking over to him. "You lied earlier when you said you weren't friends, didn't you? You're trying to protect her or something."

"We're not friends," Koujirou says firmly, eyes rising to meet Makoto's, "And I'm not trying to protect her. I just don't have the answer you want. Everyone is telling you to go to Imayoshi, and you don't want to hear it."

Makoto frowns, turning away. Koujirou isn't the talkative type; for him to suddenly say so many words at a time, and for so many of those words to be in opposition of Makoto's usually absolute rule, is a little worrisome. But the conversation hasn't been a total waste; he has an idea now.

"So what you're saying," he begins, looking again at Kinaka, "Is that the person who got to know Kuroda best was her boyfriend?"

She nods warily.

"So it would make sense, then," he goes on, smiling, "That all I have to do is become her boyfriend."

"Yeah, that would make sense," Kinaka grins, "If she didn't already hate your guts."

"Irrelevant," Makoto says, "I can be quite charming if you want to be." He thinks about snapping at the absolutely incredulous look on Kinaka's face, but decides it's not worth the effort. "I'll show Kuroda I'm not a threat. By the time she's relaxed around me, I'll have everything I need to bring her down."

"You didn't listen to me at all, did you?" Kinaka sighs, "She isn't some one-dimensional moron with an obvious weakness."

"But she has one," Makoto says, smile twisting into a smirk, "And if anyone can find it, it's me."

* * *

Their art teacher announces a project due the following month with an excited sparkle in her eye. "I hear you're reading _The Wild Geese_ for Mr. Tanaka right now," she says, "And midterms are coming soon, so I thought I'd lessen your work load a little by giving you something related."

She starts going on and on about the themes in the book and what kinds of beautiful, abstract images she thinks they would make, and Makoto glances over at Kuroda, who shares a table with him in the art room and has moved her chair as far as humanly possible away from him. She almost looks interested at what the teacher is saying. Makoto has noticed she seems to have a thing for that book.

The word _"partner" _has him paying attention again. "I want you to work in partners," their teacher says, "That way you have two different interpretations of the narrative that you can express simultaneously. Go ahead and work with the person next to you."

Makoto tries very hard not to smile right away, eyes dragging over to the side to meet Fuji's hesitant gaze. "Kuroda," he says pleasantly.

"Hanamiya," she returns with a curt nod. He's never seen her look quite so bothered before. It's even harder to keep a poker face.

"Looks like we're partners."

"Yes, it looks that way."

"We should meet up after school and figure out what we want to do," he offers. She nods stiffly. "Would you like me to come over?"

Fuji fixes him with a glare cold enough to freeze hell over. "I suppose you should," she says, disliking the idea of sharing the same air as him outside of class.

Makoto lets himself smile when she isn't looking anymore, the gears in his head turning as he forms a plan.


	7. Chapter 7

**Let's see if I can keep up with it this time haha.**

* * *

Walking home with Fuji Kuroda is exactly as unpleasant as Makoto anticipated.

She insisted on waiting until the day after they'd gotten their assignment so she could warn her parents she'd be having someone over, and Makoto let it go because it was more hilarious than anything. Fuji is the kind of person who has a very strict schedule, who probably counts the time it takes to brush her teeth and get ready in the morning down to the second so she knows she's still adhering to it. It makes it a little surprising that she'd dip her toes into blackmail, let alone have such a good handle on both him and Kinaka, but he's determined to figure out what makes her tick.

"Hanamiya," she addresses him coldly the moment they leave school grounds, "I'd like you to keep in mind that the only reason you're coming over is so we can begin work on the art project and finish it as expediently as possible."

He rolls his eyes. "You don't say? I nearly forgot how much I can't fucking stand you and mistook us for a couple. Thanks for reminding me, Kuroda."

She gives him a sharp glance out of the corner of her eye. "Keep the attitude to a minimum," she warns, "And refrain from using profanity. My mother will be home and my father will arrive later tonight, and I would greatly appreciate—!"

"Oh, your folks will be home?" Makoto interrupts, "You're bringing me home to meet your parents? You sure this isn't a date, Kuroda?"

She stops walking, and Makoto is secretly pleased at the reaction. "You can keep taunting me if you'd like, but it's in your best interest not to." Fuji adjusts her glasses and her eyes become obscured by the light reflecting off of them, but he feels confident that she's giving him a smug look. "I'm certain that even you can conduct yourself like a mature young adult under rare circumstances. My mother keeps a close watch over my academic life, and she'd be quite upset if I ended up with a delinquent for a project partner. You wouldn't make her demand we're both reassigned, would you?"

Makoto is still inwardly in disbelief that Fuji is even for real—he thought perfectionists with sticks up their asses who only stayed up late to study for tests and addressed their parents as "mother and father" couldn't possibly be real. He smiles. "Certainly not, Kuroda," he says in the most sickeningly sweet voice he can possibly muster, "Why, your parents will be positively thrilled that someone as well-mannered as myself is your partner for the art project."

She regards him with a scowl. "Tone it down," she mutters, and starts to walk again, but Makoto is still grinning.

Fuji lives in a picturesque neighborhood in suburban Tokyo, her family's home unsurprisingly large and elegant-looking, a neat brick path framed by tall hedges leading right up to the door where a bronze nameplate proudly bears the characters that spell "KURODA." Makoto grimaces, already imagining her parents—older versions of Fuji, emotionless robots obsessed with their jobs and netting promotions and having the nicest-looking plants in the neighborhood, utterly enamored with their boring and meaningless lives.

Makoto walks in behind Fuji, slipping off his shoes in the entryway. He hears her say, "Mother, father, I'm home," and when someone normal appears in the hall, he's shocked speechless.

Mrs. Kuroda is a tall woman who keeps her hair quite a bit longer than her daughter's, bangs tucked neatly behind her ears and part straight down the middle. She's neat but she isn't obsessive like Fuji, and she has an inviting smile on her face when she spots Makoto, which really throws him for a loop.

"Welcome home," she says, "This must be your partner for the art project?"

Makoto flashes a smile and gives a slight bow. "Hanamiya, Makoto," he says politely, "It's very nice to meet you."

"So polite!" Mrs. Kuroda laughs, "Fuji is always working so hard on her school work, so I don't get to meet her friends very often. Group projects like these can really be a good thing sometimes, can't they? You get to spend time with your friends while you get homework done."

Makoto stares, still in shock. The woman in front of him is either completely oblivious to her daughter's anal-retentive and antisocial behavior, or she's in denial. He glances cautiously at Fuji, who is eyeing the stairs like she'd really like to be working on the project, completely ignoring her mother, and he thinks it must be the latter—surely, if she's as involved as Fuji claims with her "academic life," she would have noticed that her daughter doesn't _have_ friends and doesn't seem to interested in making any.

"Go on," Mrs. Kuroda says, "I'll bring up tea and macaroons for you later, if you'd like."

"Please don't trouble yourself," Makoto says, but she waves him off.

"No trouble at all! If you're a friend of Fuji's, you're like a child of my own."

Fuji shoots Makoto a warning glance that he interprets as a demand to get his ass up the stairs, and he smirks but follows her anyway. Her room is notably lacking in idol posters, stuffed animals or other things he'd expect for a girl her age, but it's also lacking any distinguishable personal items save for a collection of books in a short bookshelf in the corner. He doesn't see even a single stray sock. There isn't an ounce of personality in the room.

He isn't really surprised.

"Seems like I made a good first impression," he says with a grin as he sits on the edge of Fuji's bed, watching her set her bag down next to her desk in a spot worn into the carpet where she presumably sets it every day. She begins taking out her books, ignoring the comment. "Honestly, I'm not sure what to think, Kuroda. I was sure your parents would be just like you, but your mother seems completely normal. So where does your personality come from? Is it your father?"

"Hanamiya," she says sharply, "I'd appreciate it if you could focus on the project."

He fights to keep himself from grinning wider; it sounds like he's struck a nerve. Is she sensitive about being compared to her parents? Is she embarrassed by them? Is she perhaps a freak accident that came out of a completely normal home, imagining herself as the only high-achieving genius in a family of mediocrity? He wasn't sure yet, but he couldn't wait to find out.

"Of course, the project," he nods in agreement, and gets his copy of _The Wild Geese_ from his bag, setting it on the bed beside him. "What did you have in mind, Kuroda?"

He glanced at her when he didn't get an answer and found her turning through her own copy, eyes quickly moving back and forth as she skimmed the pages. "Perhaps we should discuss what parts of the book we enjoyed the most," she suggests, "From there, we can determine how to combine our interests into one cohesive project."

Makoto shrugged. "I didn't particularly enjoy the book." He gets a little thrill out of the incensed look on Fuji's face from such a passive comment. "Why don't we just focus on the geese?" he says, "They're the most obvious recurring symbol."

Fuji's perturbed expression becomes thoughtful. "Perhaps," she says, "We could do a diptych. Each of us will complete one painting featuring our interpretation of the symbolism of the geese."

She opens her mouth to say something else, but her door opens, and Mrs. Kuroda stands just outside with a dark wood tea tray, a kettle, two cups and a plate of pastel-colored macaroons balanced on top. "I hate to interrupt," she says cheerfully, "But I thought you might like some snacks."

"Thank you, mother," Fuji says stiffly, standing to retrieve the tray, and setting it at her desk.

"Oh," Mrs. Kuroda exclaims, "Fuji, you only have one chair in here! Poor Makoto doesn't have anywhere to sit."

Fuji glances back at him, grimacing when her mother can't see her expression. "He's sitting on the bed right now."

"No, that won't do. Should I bring another one up?"

"I'd hate to trouble you, Mrs. Kuroda," Makoto says sweetly.

Fuji's mother beams. Fuji, with her back turned to her mother, looks as though she'd like him to go into sudden cardiac arrest. "No trouble at all," she says.

"It's fine, mother," Fuji insists, "Hanamiya and I were just discussing our project, and we believe we'll be creating a diptych painting. We'll likely use the kitchen table in order to avoid dirtying the carpet."

"Oh, really? Well, I guess, if that's the case…."

Makoto doesn't know if he wants to laugh or grimace as he listens to the two of them interact. _It has to be her father, _Makoto thinks, _she isn't a fucking thing like her mother._

By the time Fuji has finally gotten her mother out of her room and closed the door again, she's noticeably flustered, a small frown on her face as she again pushes her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "Hanamiya, you may leave now."

Makoto laughs. "Trying to kick me out already?" he taunts, "You should really listen to your mother; she said group projects are wonderful because it lets you work with your _friends_. Why don't we study together?"

What happens next happens so suddenly that Makoto would almost call it frightening, if he were a person who were afraid of anything. Fuji Kuroda marches over to him and takes a fistful of his uniform jacket below his throat, pushing him down on the bed and climbing over him, and glaring hellfire over the edge of her glasses. "Listen closely, because I am not going to repeat myself," she hisses, "I do not want you here. You will keep your interaction with my mother and father to an absolute minimum, and you will not speak to me unless it has to do with our shared project, or in response to a question I ask you. If behaving in a respectful manner is too much for you to handle, I will make your life at Kirisaki Daiichi an absolute living hell, and your membership on the basketball team will be the least of your worries."

Makoto doesn't say anything for a minute, letting her cool off and wearing a neutral expression. As enjoyable as it is to see her completely lose her shit—and honestly, that just now almost made the whole miserable project worth doing—getting her upset with him works against his eventual goal, which is to become Fuji's boyfriend long enough to completely destroy her life.

That being said, he's still learned something very interesting from the outburst; something about his earlier statement about her mother's words really upset her.

"I understand," he says quietly, looking away in feigned submission.

Seemingly satisfied, Fuji releases him and gets up, returning to her desk where she opens a notebook and begins working on something, ignoring him for the rest of his visit.

It's only day one of the group project, but Makoto is already confident that he'll have Fuji right where he wants her by the time their painting is finished.

When the boredom of studying in silence becomes too much to bear and it's become clear that Fuji really isn't going to even look at him, Makoto excuses himself and gathers his things, heading back down the stairs. He thinks he's made a clean getaway, but Mrs. Kuroda appears in the downstairs hallway with her usual oblivious smile. "Are you heading home, Hanamiya?" she asks.

"Yes. Thank you for your hospitality," he says with another boy and an award-winning smile.

She laughs. "Anytime," she says, "Please, think of this as your second home. I hope you'll excuse Fuji if she comes off as a bit…cold." She breaks eye contact, and Makoto sees embarrassment on her face. "She's so difficult sometimes," Mrs. Kuroda says quietly, "I just know she'd have more friends if she opened up a bit." She looks at him again, smiling once more. "Thank you for being so patient with her."

So she isn't completely oblivious.

_Interesting._

"Truthfully, I don't find your daughter difficult at all," Makoto says, "I think she's rather charming, if that isn't too bold a thing to say."

"No!" Mrs. Kuroda says, sounding delighted. "You really think so?"

"I do. In fact," and here, Makoto has to look away, because he isn't sure he can hide his smile. He tries to disguise it as a shy, nervous one. "I'm very fond of her. I've admired her since my first year at Kirisaki Daiichi. I'd actually like to try asking her out."

Mrs. Kuroda looks like she might faint. "Oh, Makoto," she says, "That would be wonderful! Please, don't be discouraged by Fuji's behavior; I'm certain, if someone was willing to give her a chance, she'd be more than happy to do the same for them."

Well, maybe a little oblivious.

But it's a start. Makoto has Mrs. Kuroda positively wrapped around his finger for being probably the first person Fuji has ever had over and claimed to enjoy her company. Finding an excuse to continue coming even after the project's completion won't be difficult now.

Makoto leaves the Kuroda residence positively walking on air, whistling to himself with a smile on his face. A passerby he's just had a nice afternoon with his girlfriend, and the thought makes him laugh all the way home.

* * *

"So?"

Kinaka Daicho finds Makoto the next morning before class starts, barging into the classroom as usual and leaning against his desk with her arms crossed over her chest. Makoto glances up at her, smiling. "So what?"

"Have you made any headway with Kuroda?"

He chuckles. "You could say that."

She sighs. "You're not going to tell me anything, are you?"

"I'll tell you what you need to know, which isn't anything that's happened recently."

"Are you sure you can even pull this off?" she asks.

"Don't you worry your pretty, little head, Daicho, I've got this in the bag."

The classroom door is opened violently and Kinaka flinches when she looks back, scurrying away when Fuji Kuroda comes into the room, looking straight at Makoto, who gives her a coy smile and wave. She makes a beeline for him, glancing around the room at the handful of other students who are early.

"Good morning, Kuroda," he says.

She nods, her usual unpleasant frown on her face, but it seems a touch anxious. "Good morning, Hanamiya," she says. She brings her hands together in front of her and stands with her legs together, suddenly looking much smaller and less authoritative than usual. "I'd like to discuss something with you in the hall."

Curious, he nods and follows her outside the classroom door. Fuji shuts it and glances own at her shoes. The timidity is so out of character for her that Makoto takes a good look to make sure it's actually Kuroda he's talking to. She doesn't say anything for a while, standing awkwardly in front of him with her eyes averted. "What did you want?" Makoto asks impatiently.

Fuji doesn't look at him. "I…." She hesitates, and he sees her shoulders rise and fall as she takes a steadying breath. "I wanted to confess my feelings for you."

The words don't register at first. Makoto opens his mouth to respond, and then closes it, thinking. He wonders if he's still in bed having a bizarre dream. Kuroda is still avoiding his eyes. "What?" he asks finally, because he doesn't know what else to say.

"I am confessing my feelings for you, Makoto Hanamiya," she repeats.

This doesn't necessarily dampen Makoto's good mood, but he is confused and trying to figure out _just what in the fuck is going on_. Fuji's cheeks are just a bit flushed, probably from embarrassment, and he doesn't know where this is coming from. Did she overhear him talking to her mother the previous night? Did her mother tell her what he'd said? It seems far too coincidental that it would happen the immediate day after, especially since Fuji hasn't shown even the least bit of interest in him before.

Which is when it hits him.

Fuji knows—maybe from Daicho, maybe from her mother, maybe just a lucky guess—that Makoto is up to something, and she's trying to play the same game with him. Makoto could laugh. If she really thinks she's going to have any success, that she'll be able to seduce him and get him even further under her control, she has another thing coming. Surely, she has to know it won't be so easy.

"Well, Kuroda," he says with theatrical shock, "Honestly, this comes as a surprise. I would never have guessed." He catches her lips twitching in irritation. "But you'll be happy to know that I return your feelings. I'd like to be your boyfriend."

She still doesn't look at him when she says, without a hint of emotion, "I'm very glad to hear that." Makoto inwardly scoffs; for someone who's trying to manipulate people around her, she's terrible when she tries to come off as sincere. "You'll come over again tonight, won't you?"

"I have practice, actually."

"Then I'll wait for you."

Makoto smiles. "How thoughtful of you, Fuji."

She looks up at him then, visibly disgusted at the sound of her name coming out of his mouth. Makoto almost says it again, but her business apparently finished, Fuji turns on her heel and walks back into the classroom, and doesn't say a word to him for the rest of the day, which he really doesn't mind.

The entire exchange is bizarre and sticks him with him long after it's over, but Makoto doesn't dwell on it. He can't imagine Fuji honestly expects him to lower his guard when she lied so poorly, but he knows there's some ulterior motive, something that made her go to the trouble of embarrassing herself with a confession, and he's not going to be caught off guard.

Makoto's not entirely sure what she's playing at, but he's sure he won't lose to her, no matter what it is.


	8. Chapter 8

"So, captain," Hiroshi says, sounding uncomfortable, "What exactly is going on here?"

Fuji Kuroda is sitting on the bench patiently, legs crossed and hands in her lap, sharp gaze fixed on Makoto who stands in the middle of the court with his teammates gathered around him.

"Because I heard a pretty weird rumor yesterday, and this is making me start to wonder."

"Let me guess," Makoto says, "You heard Kuroda and I were dating?"

He nods slowly.

"Well," and Makoto pauses to throw a smile back over his shoulder at Fuji, who grimaces back, "It's true. She confessed her feelings for me earlier today just outside our classroom, where everyone could see."

"You sure?" Kentarou mutters, "She looks like she's gonna kill you in your sleep."

"Please," Makoto scoffs, and tosses the basketball to him, "Nothing tarnishes a permanent record faster than murder."

His teammates don't move, glancing to one another in confusion. "This is weird, right?" Hiroshi asks, "I'm not the only one who thinks this is weird?"

"Nah, it's weird," Kazuya nods in agreement.

Koujirou, as usual, is quiet, but he has that pensive look on his face that he's been getting anytime Fuji Kuroda is brought up in conversation, except it seems more intense somehow. He actually looks directly at Fuji, and to Makoto's surprise, she's the first to back down, breaking eye contact with his teammate and looking at the far wall instead. Before Makoto can comment on it, however, Kazuya interrupts.

"Well, since you seem to be popular with girls all of the sudden," he drawls, a smile growing on his face, "Maybe you could help me out with Daicho?"

Makoto shakes his head. "Don't chase after Daicho, Hara, even you deserve better than that."

"Aw, are you looking out for me?" Kazuya teases, leaning on one of Makoto's shoulders, "That's awful nice of you, captain. I think having a girlfriend's making you into a nice guy."

Makoto has to laugh at that.

* * *

After practice is over, he makes sure to make her wait as long as possible, using the locker room showers and changing into his uniform at a leisurely pace. The rest of the team is long gone by the time he reemerges in the hallway, but Fuji is waiting just as she promised she would be, standing up straight rather than leaning against the wall, and Makoto inwardly cringes at discovering yet another way that she's absolutely the most appearance-conscious person he's ever had the displeasure of knowing.

She doesn't actually notice him at first, because her face is buried in _The Wild Geese_, the book held delicately in both hands.

"Fuji," he calls, and she startles at the sound of his voice, quickly snapping the book shut and tucking it into her bag in a single swift motion before meeting his eyes. She doesn't quite look flustered, but Makoto is satisfied by her apparent irritation.

"Hanamiya," she greets cordially, "Don't you think it's a bit early for us to be on a first name basis? We only started dating today."

"I don't think it's too early at all," Makoto says with a smile. He approaches her slowly, like a lion circling a lone gazelle, looking for the best angle to strike from. "In fact, I think you should use my first name, too. When you say my last name, it makes me think you don't really like me that much."

To her credit, Fuji doesn't scowl in disgust, but maintains the same level of annoyance on her face. Makoto is content to wait as long as it takes, but surprisingly quickly, he hears a quiet, "Then I will make an effort…Makoto."

His first name sounds like surrender on her lips. Makoto would be overjoyed if it wasn't all happening too smoothly. Fuji may be a slightly better actor than he thought. "We should get going so we can work on our project," he says pleasantly, and Fuji nods in agreement.

Makoto spends the walk to her house thinking, trying to figure out what Fuji's goal is. Surely she doesn't actually think she'll be able to get him to fall for her? They'd made enemies out of one another long ago, and neither of them were the type to reconcile. It seemed more likely that she was just trying to throw him off, but what was she expecting once the initial shock wore off? He couldn't figure it out.

"Makoto?"

He glances over at her. "Sorry, Fuji," he says sweetly, and he thinks he sees her eye twitch, "I was lost in thought. What were you saying?"

"I was just asking," she says patiently, "If you knew what you were going to do for your half of the project yet."

"Oh." He shrugs. "I thought about it a little. I think I'll paint some geese and flowers, maybe in kind of an abstract way, so it's like the geese are turning into flowers." Vague and surreal and pretentious; he's sure the teacher will love it.

"And were you thinking you'd use brighter or more subdued colors?"

Makoto raises a brow. "I wasn't thinking about it that deeply."

"We should coordinate, if possible," Fuji says, eyes in the sidewalk ahead, "Perhaps you missed it, but Ms. Kaneshiro mentioned that there's a contest at the art center in town near the project due date, and I would like to enter our piece."

"A contest?" Makoto repeats curiously, "What's the prize for placing first?"

"10,000 yen."

_This_ is interesting. "Oh?" he asks, "And what would you do with the money if you won?"

Fuji glances at him out of the corner of her eye but doesn't answer.

"I'm just curious," Makoto says innocently, "You don't really seem to be hurting for money, but you stole what the school raised from the fundraiser, too…."

Fuji doesn't even flinch. "Keep in mind, _Makoto_," she draws out his name in the same, sickly-sweet tone he uses with her, and it surprises him, "That bringing that up with my family won't help you, and will only encourage me to share the footage of your games with our teachers."

"I wasn't going to say anything," he says, and he means it. Mrs. Kuroda obviously thinks the world of her daughter—probably because she hardly knows her—and part of him thinks she wouldn't even believe him. Then again, she likes him a fair amount, too, but it's far too early for him to go to her parents with this.

"As I was saying," Fuji continues in a neutral tone, "I'm considering using cool colors, or perhaps a monochrome color scheme with only blue. Do you have a preference?"

Makoto blinks, surprised yet again at her devotion to the project. "Not especially."

"Hm. Monochrome, then."

When they arrive at her home, Mrs. Kuroda is waiting with a tray of tea and macaroons, smile as bright as the sun. She's wearing pink, fuzzy slippers and a striped apron, looking like a total stranger standing next to her prim and proper daughter who stiffly takes it and steps around her to sit at the kitchen table. "I went out and bought some paints and canvases for your project," Mrs. Kuroda says, setting a couple plastic bags in front of them.

"Thank you, mother."

"Thanks, Mrs. Kuroda."

She modestly covers her laughter with one hand. "Let me know if I can get you anything," she says, smiling pointedly at Makoto, "I'll leave you two alone now."

She disappears up the stairs, and Makoto distantly hears a TV turn on somewhere above them, a talk show of some sort with a studio audience laughing. He glances at Fuji, who's still fixated on the project, book out on the table. "Did you tell her you were going to ask me out?" he asks.

Fuji doesn't even look up. "Does it matter?"

"Just asking."

Again, she gets prickly where her family is involved. Makoto wonders if she's concerned that he'll use them in his quest to destroy her.

Which, he supposes, is a valid fear.

Makoto opens up his notebook and starts sketching birds, reaching over to pop a green macaroon in his mouth. "What the hell do geese even look like?" he mutters to himself, but Fuji hears him and looks up from her book. Pencil in hand, she reaches across the table.

"May I?" she asks.

Makoto stare at her. Blinks once. Shakes his head.

She begins to draw. From the other side of the table, her sketches are upside-down to him, but Makoto finds himself unable to look away as her lightly drawn lines and circles become geese, long necks stretched forward as they gaze at some distant horizon and wings raised above their bodies in mid-flight.

Weirdest of all, they're really well drawn. Of all the things Makoto thought Fuji capable of, he never imagined her to be the artistic type.

"Just give them longer necks," she says absently, her tone far more casual than he's ever heard it before as she begins making light sketches over his misshapen birds, "And make their beaks a little more rounded. If they're going to be surreal anyway, the rest doesn't really matter, but the necks should be recognizable."

Makoto stares down, speechless, and then across the table to Fuji, whose face flushes self-consciously before she retreats back into her prickly shell. "You are free to disregard the advice, if you'd like."

"No, I'll try that," Makoto says, watching carefully to see what she'll do next. But nothing happens, and she returns to reading her copy of the book. "I didn't know you could talk normally."

Fuji adjusts her glasses when they slip a bit down her nose. "It's a matter of formality, not normalcy."

"Oh, is it?" Makoto frowns. "Then maybe you should do it more often, since we're trying to be closer and all. Calling me by my first name is nice, but you still sound pretty closed off."

He has to bite down on the inside of his mouth to fight a smile at the look she gives him. "I'll have to insist that you simply overlook my manner of speaking," she says tersely.

Makoto shrugs, but he files it away for later. It's part of the armor she's constructed around herself, and he's going to have to chip away at it one tiny piece at a time if he wants to reach the vulnerable creature that lies at the center of everyone he's ever broken. He'll just have to work on it.

"What are you doing for your half?" he asks, noticing she hasn't even reached for the art supplies in the bags.

Fuji returns to reading. "I'm not sure yet."

"Really? You seem really into this project, I was sure you already had something in mind."

"Not yet." She purses her lips in determination. "It has to be perfect."

Makoto isn't sure if this is how she is with every assignment or if it's unique to this one, but he's already having visions of an irate Fuji berating him over his shitty geese. _"You call this art?" _he imagines her screaming as she takes his painting and throws it in the trash. It's not as though he's so sensitive that she could hurt his feelings over some stupid group project he couldn't care less about, but he isn't interested in doing it five times so it fits her artistic vision.

"You may begin your half, if you'd like," Fuji says without looking at him, absorbed in the book even though Makoto is sure she must have finished it five times by now, "If you'd like help, I'd be happy to assist you." The weirdest part is that she sounds sincere.

Makoto considers the day a success. He thinks he's stumbled onto a few things, things that Fuji cares about deeply despite her frigid exterior, and those things are this stupid assigned reading they've done and art. Somehow, he thinks this will come in handy later.

He ends up burning an hour doodling geese in his notebook and having Fuji draw better geese over top of them until he gets the hang of it, and he keeps expecting her to get mad at him for wasting time, but she seems to be enjoying herself, and so is he.

Except, no, no he's not enjoying himself. He's been assigned a group project with his least favorite person in all of Kirisaki Daiichi, which is really saying something considering how many annoying assholes he goes to school with, so he can't possibly be enjoying himself. Although there is something relaxing about sitting at the kitchen table with hot tea and macaroons, wasting notebook paper to draw birds doing progressively dumber things, like holding coffee mugs and reading books. He imagines it'd feel just as nice if he did it on his own, though. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend Fuji isn't there.

Makoto is not so arrogant that he won't admit to himself when things are getting dangerous, but he's not about to let himself get carried away. Fuji Kuroda is his number one enemy and current target; any positive feelings he has in her presence are incidental or situational.

Before he gets too caught up in reminding himself to keep a level head, Makoto is startled by the sound of the front door opening, and turns around to find a man he assumes to be Mr. Kuroda taking his shoes off in the entryway. He's wearing an expensive-looking suit and carrying a briefcase, hair gelled back. He looks put together but not too uptight as he comes down the hall towards the kitchen, looking surprised to see Makoto.

He hears light footsteps coming down the stairs and Mrs. Kuroda follows shortly after, smiling as she says, "Welcome home, dear," and takes his suit jacket for him. He thanks her but his attention is obviously on the kitchen table.

"Father," Fuji greets, standing from the table, "This is Hanamiya, Makoto. We've been assigned a project together in art class."

"Ah, I see," Mr. Kuroda says with a nod. He smiles a bit, though nowhere as warmly as his wife.

"Would you like some tea?" Fuji asks, "Coffee?"

"No, that's alright, Fuji. You've got a project to work on." He leaves after that, going into the next room with Mrs. Kuroda, and Makoto watches their backs until they disappear around the corner. He'd been almost certain that Fuji's behavior was something she'd picked up from her equally uptight family, and while her father wasn't quite as warm as her mother, he, too, was perfectly average.

_So where in the fuck did it come from?_

"Makoto," Fuji says sharply, jarring him out of his thoughts, "I'm not sure what impression you have of my family, but my mother and father are both high achieving individuals. My father is not an ordinary salaryman; he is the CFO at his company. My mother is an academic who studies genetics."

Makoto hesitates, unsure of what response he's supposed to give. "Okay?" he says carefully, at a loss.

Self-conscious for sure. Makoto isn't sure why. He'd guessed her family was mediocre, and that was what caused her to try to distance herself from them, but that doesn't seem to be the case, either. If she's telling the truth, then what does she have to be embarrassed about?

"That's impressive," he says at last, "Will you be following in their footsteps, then?"

For just a split second, Makoto sees it, flashing in her eyes beneath the surface of her carefully maintained façade of stoicism—sadness.

"Perhaps," she says, "Mathematics and the sciences have always been my strongest subjects. My mother would like to see me go to medical school."

"I'm sure you'd do well." Makoto puts on his best worried expression. "But is that what _you_ want?"

Fuji doesn't answer. She doesn't have to.

Makoto is inwardly grinning at gleaning yet another piece of sensitive information about her, but another part of him is perturbed at the sorrow he sees on her face. It looks like it doesn't belong there, not on the face of the infuriatingly confident Fuji Kuroda.

Makoto supposes he's never been one to like leaving things half-finished. He'll feel better when she's utterly ruined, face red and eyes puffy as tears run down her cheeks and she begs on her knees for a second chance. Honestly, he has a hard time picturing it even in his mind's eye, which only means it'll be all the sweeter when it finally becomes a reality.


	9. Chapter 9

The next day, Makoto is just about to go to the cafeteria to get lunch when he sees a shadow over his desk and glances up to find Fuji Kuroda standing silently beside it, a blue bento box in her hands that she bows to offer to him. "I made you lunch," she says simply.

Makoto is able to recover quickly enough to take it with a warm smile, but inwardly he feels like he's been completely blindsided again. This is way more effort than he ever planned on putting into their "relationship," but Fuji's been marching right along and acting as though they actually like each other. He sets the box on his desk and slides off the lid, glancing down in surprise at the rice neatly packed into one side and the assorted eggs, tempura and vegetables on the other, arranged and presented elegantly.

"Thank you, Fuji," he says, smiling up at her, but her attention is across the room. Makoto follows her gaze and finds Koujirou standing in the open doorway to their classroom, staring at Fuji.

He doesn't speak and he doesn't make any gestures, but some kind of understanding passes between the two of them, and when he turns away, Fuji says, "Pardon me," and walks out the door.

Makoto is confused for only half a second before he becomes enraged. He knows Koujirou has some connection to Fuji, and maybe even a soft spot for her. Teammate or not, if he gets in his way, he's nothing but garbage. Abandoning the homemade lunch, Makoto gets out of his desk and heads to the door, sticking his head out into the hall in time to catch the back of Fuji's head as she walks down the hall and disappears around a corner. He follows silently, keeping far enough behind to avoid being heard or seen, and ends up standing on the staircase that leads up to the roof, holding the door open just a bit to hear pieces of conversation carried by the wind.

"So you're making him boxed lunches now?" he hears Koujirou ask.

He thinks he hears Fuji mutter a response, but it's too soft for him to make out the exact words.

"What are you going to do after this, then?"

He wonders why this is any of Koujirou's goddamned business.

"I don't know Imayoshi well enough to say one way or the other," he hears, frowning at the mention of the name, "They're similar enough that it doesn't really matter."

Makoto is already aggravated at missing half of the conversation and a lot of context, but Koujirou's comment only makes him angrier. He doesn't bother moving, remaining in the hallway even as he hears them stop talking and footsteps start approaching the door to come back downstairs. Fuji is first, and the moment she opens the door and sees him there, her eyes widen. Makoto makes sure to smile, nice and wide and menacing, just so she knows he heard every word. She scurries past him.

Koujirou stops at the top of the stairs, the door leading to the roof slamming behind him, and Makoto rushes up, grabbing a fistful of his uniform below his throat, and rams him against the steel door. "You should've told me you liked her, Furuhashi," he sneers, "I would've beaten the feeling out of you a lot sooner."

Koujirou winces at the initial impact but doesn't react otherwise. "It's exactly the same pattern," he says.

"And what the hell does that mean?"

"The same pattern as when we were in middle school." Koujirou looks him dead in the eye. "When she started dating Imayoshi."

Makoto bites back a few angry accusations for the moment. "What do you mean?"

"Fuji confessed to him suddenly the day after they met despite showing little to no interest. She waited for him after school and went to basketball practice so they could walk home together. Then, she started bringing him boxed lunches." Makoto doesn't want to show any weakness, but Koujirou's stare is starting to bother him, so he pretends he's satisfied and releases his grip on his uniform. Koujirou straightens his tie, looking completely unruffled otherwise.

"Who cares?" he grumbles, "She's anal retentive. I wouldn't be surprised if she had a routine for dating, like everything else in her life."

"That's not the point, and you know it isn't."

He rounds on him, glaring. "What the fuck is this about? And what were you talking about earlier? If you get in my way, I'll make sure you have an _accident_ that ruins your legs for the next few weeks at the very least. Don't think I can't find a replacement for you before the next game."

"I'm not going to get in your way," he says in an infuriatingly calm tone, "I just wanted you to know."

"Know what?" Makoto scoffs, "That's nothing I didn't already know. Remember what I said; don't bother looking after her."

"I'm trying to look out for both of you," Koujirou says quietly, "You like to shatter people, Hanamiya. I think sometimes you get overexcited and miss when there's already glass all over the floor."

Makoto raises a brow. "Getting poetic all of the sudden?"

Koujirou doesn't say anything else, though, and since finding a substitute would be more inconvenient than he lets on, he decides to walk away before he gets any angrier. _Glass on the floor,_ he repeats in his head with a roll of his eyes. What's that supposed to even mean? Is he saying Kuroda was broken before he got there?

Makoto is _always_ careful. If Koujirou thinks a little broken glass is going to keep him from utterly destroying what's left of her, he doesn't know him nearly as well as he thinks.

* * *

Makoto is minding his own business as he comes into school in the morning when a slender hand closes around his forearm and drags him down the hallway and into an empty science classroom. Kinaka Daicho glances both ways down the hall behind him and hurriedly shuts the door, looking visibly unsettled.

"Did you need something?" he asks impatiently, and she turns to him with a nonchalant smile, but he sees her hands shaking.

"I've got an update for you," she says, "Would've told you sooner, but it's impossible to get you by yourself anymore. Kuroda is practically glued to your side, since you're dating the ice queen herself."

"Excuses," he rolls his eyes, "What're you so afraid of? If she's glued to my side, she must not be bothering you."

The corners of Kinaka's lips twitch in annoyance. "You certainly wouldn't _think_ so, but…."

He cuts her off with a passive wave of his hand. "I don't care. What did you want to tell me?"

She glares at him, setting one hand on her hip, but doesn't argue. "You've been to Kuroda's house now, right?"

"Yeah. I go every day to work on this stupid project."

"Good. The recordings of your game are stored on her personal computer. As far as I know, she thinks it's risky to make physical copies, so you should be good if you get rid of those."

Makoto nods. "Good to know."

Kinaka's gaze hardens. "That's not going to be enough by itself," she says, "Kuroda's just going to get dirt on you in some other way, and we'll be back to square one. You're going to have to discredit her completely so nobody will take her seriously anymore."

"I'm working on it," Makoto says with a shrug, "I'm still in the information-gathering phase."

"Well, hurry up," Kinaka says with a frown, "I really don't care what happens to you, but my freedom is tied to yours, so you'd better not back yourself into a corner or do something stupid. Kuroda knows what she's doing, and she'll take you for a ride if she can." She jabs him in the chest with one delicately manicured finger. "Don't fuck this up."

"I know what I'm doing, Daicho," he scoffs, knocking her hand away. "Worry about yourself." He opens the classroom door and checks briefly to make sure Fuji isn't somewhere nearby listening, then scolds himself for being paranoid.

* * *

Shoichi Imayoshi has been bothering the hell out of Makoto for weeks despite not being physically present. On one hand, if no one had ever said anything, he wouldn't have had any reason to connect him to Fuji, but ever since he heard they'd dated once, his name just keeps coming up until it seems the two of them have some intricately connected past that Makoto is going to have to untangle if he ever wants to know anything.

And since he's too proud to ask Imayoshi a goddamned thing, he's just going to have to stick with the people immediately in the vicinity. He's asked Kinaka, who didn't know nearly as much as he'd hoped, and Koujirou, who's only become more and more obnoxious as this fiasco has dragged on. But now that they're apparently dating and at least pretending to be open with one another, he doesn't see why he can't just ask Fuji.

Except the second the name "Imayoshi" passes his lips, Fuji looks up at him with wide, deer-caught-in-headlights eyes and freezes, pencil hovering over her notebook and book spread open with her free hand on the kitchen table. "Imayoshi?" she repeats uneasily, "What about him?"

Makoto pretends he isn't all that interested, shrugging and looking down at his own paper. He has several pages full of geese and flowers and goose heads popping out of flowers and flowers turning into geese and all sorts of weird shit—he's found it to be somewhat therapeutic. "Just curious," he says, "I heard you knew him, which is funny, because we went to the same middle school."

She doesn't answer. Makoto glances up to make sure he hasn't pushed too far too fast, but Fuji is still just staring down at the table, uncharacteristically quiet.

"We weren't friends, exactly," Makoto continues, "But we talked now and then."

He wants to press a little harder but never gets the chance, because Mrs. Kuroda wanders into the kitchen at that moment looking for something and Fuji takes the opportunity to excuse herself to use the restroom and escape the conversation. "How's the project coming?" Mrs. Kuroda asks.

Makoto smiles sheepishly. "Ah, a little slowly. We're taking the planning very seriously."

"Oh, I understand. Besides, you've got plenty of time." Her gaze travels to Fuji's notebook at the geese flying across the page, but she asks him, "So you went to the same school as Imayoshi?"

Makoto looks up abruptly, surprised. _Was she eavesdropping?_ "I did," he says.

Mrs. Kuroda still isn't looking at him, but her smile is a little weaker than usual. "Hm," is all she says.

Makoto hesitates a beat before he decides to ask, "He's a friend of Fuji's, isn't he?"

Mrs. Kuroda laughs softly. "Goodness, no," she says, and straightens up, attention on Makoto again. She's still smiling a bit, but it seems off now. Makoto has the strangest nagging feeling, like when he mistakes someone for being a complete idiot and they turn around and try to pull the rug out from underneath him. "They dated for a little while," she says, "But they broke it off before too long, which is just as well. That boy was no good. He was lazy, and careless, and not very bright, and just all wrong for her." Mrs. Kuroda is frowning for the first time that he's ever seen, eyes narrow and gaze fixed on point on the wall somewhere next to his head. "I couldn't stand someone like that dating my daughter."

When she suddenly meets his eyes, Makoto's breath catches in his throat and he feels like the tables have been turned, like he's the prey being pinned down by a fearsome predator. Mrs. Kuroda smiles again, but he can't see it as the same blindly optimistic one he thought it was before. For some reason, he thinks she knows a lot more than he realized. "But you're not like that, are you, Makoto?" she asks, and her tone is cheerful but she's staring hard enough that she might as well be looking right through him.

Makoto forces a smile. "No, Mrs. Kuroda."

Fuji comes back from the bathroom then and Mrs. Kuroda moves to let her into her chair, offering to get them some cookies if they'd like, though Fuji turns her down and she drifts elsewhere in the house. Makoto feels unsettled for the rest of his visit and can't stop looking up every few minutes, wondering if Mrs. Kuroda is lurking around the corner listening, if she somehow _knows_.

_What the fuck have I gotten myself into?_ he wonders, and glances across the table at Fuji, who's already gone back to sketching her geese.

* * *

"There's a game this Saturday, correct?"

Makoto looks up from the bento Fuji prepared and finds her slipping into the empty desk beside him. "Yeah, there is."

"I will attend," she says, and pauses a moment before adding, "You are free to play in whatever manner you see fit to attain victory. I will take no action against you."

Makoto raises a brow. "You seriously expect me to believe that?"

She looks offended, but Makoto can't imagine why; she can't honestly think he'd trust her. "As long as you win," she says, holding his gaze, "Then I have nothing to criticize you for."

Despite trying not to think about it, his thoughts immediately fly back to the conversation he had with her mother the previous afternoon, and Fuji's bizarre insistence that her family was extraordinary. "Is this a pride thing for you?" he asks, "You want me to be just as 'high achieving' as your family?"

She frowns but she doesn't answer. Makoto wonders if he hit the mark.

"Well, you've got nothing to worry about," he says smoothly, "We'll win."

"Good," Fuji says evenly, "Because if you lose, you'll have fallen out of my good graces and I'll have no choice but to reveal your secret and break up with you."

Makoto isn't the type to let others have the last word, but he isn't quite sure how to respond to that, so he lets Fuji walk back to her own desk without saying anything. Could this really be about nothing more than appearances? He thought for certain Fuji knew what he was up to and was trying to act first, but this is throwing him off. Now he _has_ to win, and depending on the strength of the other team, he might just be giving her more blackmail material.

It's too early to say that he's messed up. He knows Fuji has footage of his previous games uploaded to her computer, so all he has to do is manage to find it without her noticing him snooping around or her mother deciding that he, too, is not good enough for her daughter. Even though Fuji is going to be glued to his side since they're doing a group project, and her mother has nothing better to do than listen in on their conversations.

He _may_ have backed himself into a corner. Just maybe. He isn't going to admit it yet.


	10. Chapter 10

They're playing some loser school that Makoto has never even heard of but apparently has a win streak going for the season. It's only a practice game, and he thinks that'll make it even more embarrassing when they utterly destroy the competition. Sitting on the bench while Hiroshi pretends to practice and Kazuya balances empty water bottles on Kentarou's motionless form to see how many it takes until he wakes up, Makoto glances around the stands.

He looks for Kinaka first, trying to see if Fuji's actually going to keep her word, and he doesn't find her, but that doesn't mean much; she might slink in at half-time when he's not paying attention. Fuji, however, is sitting up close in the student section, wearing what he assumes she believes normal people wear outside of school, which means it's painfully formal; a turtleneck blouse and pencil skirt, the same dark tights she wears habitually. When she meets his eyes, she doesn't wave or even smile, just stares back unblinkingly. He thinks she's trying to be intimidating.

_You'd better win,_ she must be thinking. Makoto isn't scared.

"What's the plan, captain?" Kazuya drawls, "Your girlfriend's sitting front and center. How're we playing this game?"

"The way we always do," Makoto scoffs, "Don't change on her account." He's given it some thought, and he doesn't see any reason to change what he does just because she's watching or even recording, especially since he's going to be deleting it all later anyway.

Kentarou stirs and all of the bottles fall off of him and roll around the floor, and Kazuya just laughs when his teammate glares in his direction. Makoto glances across the court at the other team, watching them practice, and quickly picks out the ace, but he finds his gaze wandering back to the stands. The corner of his mouth twitches in irritation at Fuji's dead-eyed stare, and he can still feel her eyes on him when he looks away.

"Not getting distracted, are you?" he hears Kentarou ask.

He doesn't deny it right away. "I'll be fine," he grunts, and goes to line up with his team at the half court line as the game begins.

He really isn't distracted. If anything, he's hyperaware of his every move, conscious of the referee's location at all times as his teammates spread out across the court, weaving the Spider's Web. He sees Koujirou in position behind their ace, and he hesitates an extra second before giving the signal, glancing up into the stands and looking for Fuji's piercing stare, just so he knows she's watching.

But she's not there.

He almost trips over his own feet and recovers at the last second, but he knows the others saw him stumble by the way they all seem to hold their breath. He tries not to dwell on it, tries not to wonder where she is or what she's doing to screw him over now, because he's got Koujirou positioned right where the referee can't see and the rest of the game planned out in his head.

Makoto pushes Fuji Kuroda out of his head for the next hour and, with the snap of his fingers, destroys a small school's pride.

* * *

"What the hell was that back there?"

Makoto doesn't look at Kentarou when it's over. They win in the end, 120 to 39, but he's still feeling on edge. He wipes his forehead with a towel, sitting on a bench in the locker room, and has a hard time coming up with an answer. It's just the two of them there—the others could feel the irritation coming off of him in waves and knew better than to stick around. Kentarou isn't stupid—if anything, he's the smartest one on the team next to Makoto himself, since he knows how to avoid stepping on his toes.

"You froze up all of the sudden, right before giving the signal."

"Kuroda," Makoto says simply, but then feels he has to add something, as if he's admitting weakness by leaving it at that, "I know she's planning something."

"I've never seen you get thrown off like that before."

"Well, don't worry about it," he snaps, "Because it won't be happening again." He changes in a hurry and throws his gym bag over his shoulder, still seething, still unsure of what happened. He hesitated, he knows he hesitated, but he doesn't know why. Why would it matter if Fuji saw it or not? He doesn't have anything to prove to her, he doesn't owe her anything. He doesn't know why he did it, why he even looked up to find her in the first place, and it makes him angrier the more he thinks about it.

The rest of the team is waiting right outside, and he nearly hits Kazuya with the door when he throws it open. Koujirou and Hiroshi are nowhere to be found, but he notices someone extra. Kinaka Daicho is frowning up at him from Kazuya's side, ignoring the arm around her shoulder and the stupid smile on his teammate's face.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, and he really does mean for it to be a neutral question, but it comes out dark and dripping with poison, and the way Kinaka flinches gives him just a bit of satisfaction.

"What, am I not allowed to come to games anymore?" she asks, rolling her eyes, "And before you ask, no, I'm not here doing Kuroda's dirty work."

"Then what do you want?"

"Come on, captain, isn't it obvious?" Kazuya asks, grinning, "We're going on a romantic dinner date."

_Romantic_ is not a description Makoto would apply to either of them. He looks at Kazuya obliviously blowing a bubble with his gum, an arm lazily draped over Kinaka's shoulder, and then he looks at Kinaka, whose expression says she'd rather be doing Disciplinary Committee paperwork right now, and _romantic_ is not the word that comes to mind.

Makoto frowns disapprovingly at Kinaka, who stares back, daring him to do something about it. "She's just trying to get a free meal out of you, Hara."

She glares at him. "You're such a dick."

"You didn't disagree."

"It's fine," Kazuya shrugs, "Kuroda's been hitting her up for money for weeks, so she doesn't have much right now."

"What?" Makoto glances up at Kazuya, brows furrowing. "And how do you know?"

"Well, she's been confiding in me." Kazuya pulls her a little closer, and to Makoto's surprise, she doesn't pull away or look completely disgusted. She doesn't look all that interested, either, though. He's not convinced.

"Oh, really?" Makoto asks, "And you couldn't come to me about this, Daicho?"

"I've given up on your slow ass," she sneers, "You took your sweet time, and now Kuroda's got you so stuck you don't know what to do, right?" Makoto has a few choice words about her impatience on the tip of his tongue but she cuts him off, saying, "Face it, Hanamiya. You've lost, you just don't want to admit it yet. I don't even want to see what you look like when she's through with you." It's then that he notices she's actually _shaking,_ leaning into Hara and not quite looking at Makoto, avoiding holding his gaze.

It reminds him a bit of running into teams he's played in the past sometime after a game, on the street or in a store, and the anger on the poor loser's face always turns into fear when Makoto laughs at their threats and stares them down, and they know there's nothing they can do.

Seeing his own handiwork from somebody else makes him uneasy for some reason.

"I thought you were smart," Kinaka mutters, "You were supposed to take care of her, make her stop running my life so I don't have to look over my shoulder and make sure she's not back there."

He isn't sure what's more ridiculous; that Kinaka's been putting on a brave front to cover for the fact that she needs him to save her from Fuji, or that the Fuji he's gotten to know isn't half the monster Kinaka seems to think she is.

"I don't lose, Daicho, I just let people think they've won," Makoto says, "Now shut up and go away. Leave Kuroda to me." Kinaka looks insulted but Hara grins, apparently under the impression that he has Makoto's blessing. "And don't make a habit out of this," he adds, "I don't care if Kuroda's left you broke, you should just eat at home if you don't have money. If you keep taking advantage of Hara's momentary lapse in judgment, I will break your fucking arms."

"Come on, that's a little harsh," Hara says with a laugh, though he still takes a few steps back to pull Kinaka a safe distance away.

Of course, Kinaka has to have the last word, so even as they're leaving, she calls back over her shoulder, "Go worry about your own girlfriend, Hanamiya. Last I saw, she was talking to some other guy."

Some other guy? Makoto wonders if one of the other Disciplinary Committee members came along, if Fuji invited them—if he's played into her hands again, especially since he was sloppier than usual. He slips back into the gym and scans over the thinning crowd. Fuji sticks out immediately when everyone else who's left are students who wouldn't dress up for a basketball game. She's standing all the way in the back of the student section, and he wonders when she moved, but he loses this train of thought when he sees that it's neither of the remaining members of the Disciplinary Committee who are beside her.

It's Shouichi Imayoshi.

Makoto isn't afraid of Touou's point guard, but he's definitely his least favorite person on the face of the earth, and under ordinary circumstances, he isn't above slinking away before he's engaged in conversation. He knows Shouichi isn't particularly fond of him either, and he's almost certain he only does it because he knows Makoto hates it.

But these are not ordinary circumstances, and carried by something burning, white hot and irrational in the pit of his stomach, Makoto storms up the stands and heads straight for him.

Shouichi sees him coming when he's about halfway there and his attention shifts over Fuji's shoulder, an infuriatingly pleased smile slowly spreading across his face. "It's been a while, Hanamiya," Shouichi says. Fuji turns to face him, too, looking far too calm. Makoto notices that they're standing awfully close together, close enough that Shouichi's hand hovers for a moment at her waist before he changes his mind, pointedly holding Makoto's gaze the entire time. "You seem to be doing well, still playing basketball your usual way. And I hear you're dating Fuji."

Her first name leaving Shouichi's mouth grates on his nerves. "You came to watch a practice game?"

"The game served as pleasant background noise," Shouichi says with a chuckle, "I came for Fuji, actually. She invited me."

"And then you had the audacity to come late," Fuji says sharply, but she doesn't look tense or standoffish when she says it.

Shouichi chuckles. "That was awful of me, wasn't it? I'm really sorry," he says, sounding far more amused than he does sincere.

His eyes meet Fuji's, and she's still staring at him without even a hint of anxiety, as though he hasn't caught her red-handed. She looks patient, like she's waiting for something.

"Why?" he asks, struggling to keep his temper in check. Fuji has caused him more than a few problems tonight, and she doesn't have the decency to look as scared as she should with Makoto right in front of her. "What the hell did you invite him for?"

But Fuji holds his gaze and doesn't speak, letting Shouichi answer for her. "Oh, you didn't know?" he asks, feigning surprise, "I'm sorry, Hanamiya, maybe I should have told you. I just assumed you were already aware, since you two are dating and all. I'm sure Fuji confides in you about everything." His smile widens. "At least, she did when _we_ were dating."

Makoto can't take it anymore. He doesn't trust himself to avoid assaulting Shouichi if this goes on—which is probably exactly what the smug bastard wants—so he takes Fuji by the forearm and pulls her away. He faintly hears Shouichi call after him to "have a nice night," and he doesn't even dignify that with a response.

The other spectators are gone, and it's just the two of them behind the gym. He corners her against the brick wall, resting a forearm beside her head and leans in, trying not to let on just how angry he is. "So you come to a game to watch your boyfriend play," he says evenly, "But you invite your ex? That seems pretty tactless, don't you think?"

"I didn't think you would mind," Fuji says.

"You didn't think I would mind?" he repeats harshly, "You're not very good at this whole 'dating' thing, are you, Kuroda? You're supposed to take the other person's feelings into account. What if I'm the jealous type, and seeing you with him makes me want to push him down the stairs?"

Still, she doesn't react the way he'd hoped, looking cool and composed like nothing's wrong. "Are you the jealous type, _Makoto_?" she asks quietly, and she says his name like it's a dare.

Makoto leans in, inches away from her lips. "What if I am?" he murmurs. He's bluffing, really, just trying to see how far Fuji is going to take this little game.

To his shock, she calls him on it.

Suddenly, her hands are reaching up, grasping fistfuls of the front of his jacket, pulling him down to her height and pressing their lips together. Makoto is frozen for a moment, having expected her to back down, but he recovers quickly, pulling her hands off of him and pushing them against the wall on either side of her, pulling at her lips with his teeth none too gently, and he relishes the breathless gasp she lets out. He pulls away with a few observations—that her face is only a little flushed, that she tastes distinctly of chocolate and mint, and that her breathing has already evened out and she's curling her fingers to join their hands in an affectionate gesture.

She _planned_ this. That's not really the surprising part, though, because Makoto has learned by now that Fuji is like him, always thinking two steps ahead. But he realizes that she purposefully dressed up, ate something sweet, invited Shouichi and let him see them together, knowing what he would do. It isn't blackmail, exactly, but he's fallen right into another trap. She's succeeded in riling him up, throwing him off his game, and making him jealous.

He lets go of her, backing out of arm's reach. Fuji steps away from the wall and smoothes her hair out in the back, brushing the dirt from the back of her clothes.

"My sincerest apologies, Hanamiya," she says, "I had no idea you felt so strongly about this. I'll be certain to consider your feelings in the future." And then she _smirks _at him, and he has to leave before he does something he won't be able to cover up later.

He goes home feeling all kinds of humiliated but more determined than ever, knowing he has to do something about Fuji Kuroda or he's going to lose his mind.

* * *

**This is not the last we'll see of Imayoshi, uncrowned king of trash.**


	11. Chapter 11

The name of the game is Pretend Nothing Happened, apparently, because on Monday, they're right back to square one. Fuji awkwardly presents a homemade lunch with the ulterior motive of harassing him about the art project, since it's due at the end of the week and Makoto hasn't done much in the way of painting. It isn't easy to work on anything when he's at her house, what with Mrs. Kuroda periodically strolling into the room with a smile stretched way too widely across her face, looking startlingly genuine if he didn't know better.

Fuji keeps her personal computer on her at all times; he spotted it in her bag once but never saw her take it out at home, not even the time they went up to her room, and if that isn't an indicator that some very sensitive information is on it, he doesn't know what is.

"Are you listening?" Fuji says sharply, drawing him out of his thoughts. She's moved to the vacant desk beside him, watching him eat with narrow eyes.

"Sure."

"No, you aren't." She sighs impatiently. "I said you should consult me when you begin painting. I want the composition to be perfect."

"I don't see why you're complaining to me about this. You haven't even started your half, have you?" he asks.

She looks offended. "Of course I have." When Makoto glances at her skeptically, she continues, "I simply choose not to work on it at home."

"Why not?"

She breaks eye contact suddenly, staring at a point on the wall behind his head. "The mood there is stifling," she mutters.

She doesn't say anything for a while after that, and Makoto has trouble eating even though she's not even looking at him anymore. She's just sitting there, stewing silently and glaring at the wall. When he thinks back to the night of the practice game, he tries to just ignore her, unwilling to let her unnerve him again, but the longer the silence stretches on, the less malevolent it feels.

He glances at her and he thinks she almost looks sad.

"Perhaps you have a point," she says, "I would like to spend more time on my half of the diptych. In that case, I won't be attending your practice this afternoon, and I won't be able to have you over. I'll be staying here after class to use the art room."

Makoto shrugs. "Doesn't matter to me." And just because he's feeling extra malicious, he sneakily adds, "Your mom won't mind if I don't show up, will she?"

She stiffens at the mention of her mother. "It's school-related," she says stiffly, "She'll understand."

Makoto gets the vaguest tingling sensation somewhere deep down that would probably feel like sympathy if he were anybody else. Although he'd never call it any such thing, he finds his gaze continually flicking across the classroom after lunch, watching Fuji Kuroda's eyes grow unfocused as she rests her elbow on the desk and her head in her hand.

He wonders what kinds of things someone like her daydreams about.

* * *

Makoto has grown to hate basketball practice.

His teammates tend to be half-assed about it anyway, and he's used to shouting at them for messing around, but it was a predictable sort of chaos that he didn't mind so much. Ever since Kinaka slunk into his life, the scapegoat of a much more dangerous beast, he's been steadily losing control. Koujirou hardly speaks a word to him, silently fuming from the other end of the court where he does nothing but block Hiroshi's shots. If Makoto says anything, he just shoots him a glare and goes back to what he was doing.

Kazuya, meanwhile, has picked up an even worse habit. And by habit, he means tagalong, one that Makoto has noticed hanging off of his side like a cancerous growth by the name of Kinaka Daicho. The two of them show up late, and while the youngest Disciplinary Committee member would usually wait in the hall, Fuji's absence emboldens her to waltz right in. Kazuya changes into his uniform, but when he comes back into the gym, he goes to sit with her, and Makoto gives up on practice completely.

"Daicho," Makoto greets coolly, stalking over to the both of them, "Glad to see you brought my teammate back. Mind making sure you don't make him late in the future?"

She rolls her eyes. "You guys never _actually_ practice."

"That's awfully presumptuous of you."

"Hey, it's fine. I showed up, didn't I?" Kazuya says, laughing it off.

Kinaka glares at Makoto out of the corner of her eye. "I thought I'd show a little mercy and give you some info," she says lowly, "But if you're going to be an asshole, I don't see why I should bother."

"Spare me, Daicho," Makoto says, "Last time we talked, you were so sure I'd lost that you were giving up on me. I don't need your help."

She's on her feet then, looking up at him with her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "You _have_ lost. I've seen you with her; you're starting to like her. You're letting your guard down and second-guessing yourself, and that's exactly what she wants. She's letting you think you're getting ahead, but really, you're the one who's going to end up screwed."

"And just what makes you such a fucking expert?"

Kinaka shoves him with both hands, and he actually stumbles back a few feet, startled. "Apparently, I'm the only one who's paying any attention to what's going on," she spits, "Good luck getting into Kuroda's computer without the password," and storms past him out the door, letting it slam shut behind her.

Makoto rounds on Kazuya, who's not smiling anymore. "Mind telling me what that was all about?" he hisses.

His teammate shrugs. "I thought it was pretty obvious, captain."

"I'd like a better answer than that, Hara."

"Daicho told me they really were friends for a little while back in junior high," Kazuya says, "She said she managed to get past Kuroda's shell, and she really liked the person hiding in there. They hung out a few times, but Kuroda closed herself off again after that, and the next thing Daicho knew, she was a target. Kuroda's been having her do her dirty work since then."

Makoto raises a brow. "I don't think that has anything to do with the question I asked you."

"Figured you'd wanna know," he shrugs, "Daicho told me about it earlier, so I thought it'd be useful."

"I thought you two were pretty close. She didn't tell you anything more useful than that?"

Kazuya smiles, but it's pained. "We're not that close."

"I don't believe that. She's been hanging around you since the practice game."

"Yeah, well. She's really nice to me."

"I don't see what the problem is."

"The problem is that she's nice," Kazuya laughs, "Daicho's the kind of person who's nice to people she keeps at arm's length, but with people she likes, she's really mean."

Makoto frowns, all patience exhausted. "You know what? I'm done. Practice is over. Everyone go home."

"I'm serious, captain!" Kazuya insists, even as Makoto turns away to go change back into his school uniform, "I'm not making that up."

Makoto could care less about Kazuya's non-existent love life. His thoughts are stuck on Kinaka now, thinking back to what she said while leaving about Fuji's computer password and wondering how she'd even know it, and on her behavior lately. She's been getting more and more disorganized and erratic since things with Fuji have gotten more complicated, and he wonders if Kazuya's comment about them being friends might actually have some relevance.

* * *

The sun is setting when Makoto leaves practice, orange light filtering in through the windows of the first floor hallway. He almost walks right past the art room but he pauses when he sees someone is there, back turned to him and attention solely on the canvas in front of her. It takes him a minute to realize it's Fuji, because even from behind, she looks different somehow.

Makoto won't feign appreciation for the fine arts; whatever's going on with Fuji's painting just looks weird to him. He can't make out much more than vague shapes yet, the silhouettes of birds, some large blob in the center, and a lot of blue. He doesn't see anything that looks particularly outstanding yet.

But Fuji looks relaxed in a way he doesn't often see, shoulders loose and movements decisive but gentle, humming an indistinct tune to herself. He thinks this is the closest he's seen her to being content. Part of him wants to make his presence known just to see how fast she retreats inward again, probably glaring at him all the while.

But another part of him would rather just leave, and in the end, that's the one that wins. He spends his whole walk home trying to figure out why he did it, and as Kinaka's words begin to sink in, he begins to wonder if there's any satisfying way to beat Fuji left, or if his only remaining options will leave him feeling disappointed.


	12. Chapter 12

"How did Otama and the narrator meet in the first place?"

Sometimes, Makoto feels a little bit like he's catching a glimpse of the so-called "floating world" they read so much about it literature class. The Kuroda household is a strange place, cut off from the real world, the cloistered home of a manipulative and two-faced family who outwardly portray perfection but have something much uglier inside. These are the kinds of thoughts he has when he's feeling poetic, which is worryingly often nowadays.

Sketching geese, he's found, is a strangely contemplative activity. Painting them is no different; rather than annoyed, he's quietly receptive of the advice Fuji gives as she watches his brush gently brush against the canvas. They're set up in the kitchen, the two of them crowding an easel where Makoto's final sketch is slowly being covered by a pale blue sky, the silhouettes of falling flowers and flying geese blending into one another in the upper right-hand corner, when Fuji asks him a strange question.

"Who?"

Fuji's eyes brighten in amusement but she doesn't let herself smile. "From the book," she reminds him, much more gently than he predicted she would.

_"Are you even paying attention, Makoto?"_ is more the kind of thing he expects, with her glaring him down from behind her glasses. He doesn't mind the change in routine at all.

"I don't remember," he says with a shrug.

"That's because the narrator never tells us," Fuji says, "We just have to guess. So what do you think?"

Makoto tries to add a cherry blossom tree branch across the top of the painting and ends up with a wavering gray line that sticks out too strongly against the background. Fuji doesn't take the brush from him, but pretends she has one in her hand when he stands beside him and makes slight motions with her wrist. He adds a bolded outline and gnarled twisting in the bark, and turns it into an ukiyo-e style painting.

"I think we're meant to assume that he was interested in Otama," he says, "He probably went to introduce himself after hearing about her from Okada and just claimed it was a chance meeting."

"I thought so, too," Fuji says.

"They don't end up together, though. I'm not sure if that means he never worked up the guts to tell her the truth, or if she turned him down."

"He probably didn't say anything."

Makoto glances over when Fuji doesn't follow up with an elaboration and finds her gaze fixed on his painting, staring hard like she's really trying to look into the horizon on the canvas.

"I think she really expected him to save her," she says, "But I doubt he knew that."

"He mentioned it, didn't he?" Makoto asks, "Okada told him about how unhappy she'd been, trapped in that house."

Fuji's gaze shifts to him and Makoto suddenly becomes uncomfortable by just how solemn her expression is. "He didn't really know," she says, "He might have been told she was unhappy, but he didn't really see it, did he? He didn't know exactly what happened behind closed doors."

Makoto hesitates, still trying to formulate a response, when he distantly hears the front door open and Mrs. Kuroda welcome her husband home. "Are you okay?" he asks, and he feels ridiculous the moment the words leave his mouth, because Fuji is the least okay person he's ever met, wrapped up in appearances with mile-long perfectionist streak and a nasty habit of throwing the closest person under the bus to achieve her goals. He also feels ridiculous because why should he even _care_?

Because if Fuji is suddenly unhappy he'll incite the wrath of Mrs. Kuroda. There. That's a good reason that has nothing to do with sudden, inexplicable feelings of weakness he gets where geese are involved.

"Yes," Fuji says in that carefully measured, cold and clinical tone she uses at school, which makes Makoto hear _hell no_ instead.

The next thing he knows, both of her parents are in the kitchen standing over them, scrutinizing the painting as Makoto works on it, and Fuji doesn't have to say a word for him to interpret the sudden stiffness in her shoulders as her saying, _Don't fuck up._

"Hm," Mr. Kuroda says, "That's very impressive."

"Isn't it?" Mrs. Kuroda says cheerfully, "Makoto, you're quite the talented painter! Fuji's lucky she got you as her partner. She's simply no good at art."

Makoto resists the urge to look back incredulously. Fuji's mother is either unaware that it was her daughter who fixed all of the sketches in his notebook as well as the initial sketches on the canvas, or is choosing to ignore that. "Ah, well, I'm not really that good."

"Nonsense! This is incredible."

Makoto waits for them to leave, but they don't, and he tries not to let his nervousness show as he carefully adds a few opening cherry blossoms to the picture. Mrs. Kuroda keeps up a conversation the entire time, but Mr. Kuroda is silent, and he can feel the man's eyes burning a hole into is back. The pressure is nearly unbearable.

"Are you thinking about pursuing a career in an artistic field?" Fuji's mother prods.

"I don't think so. My strongest subject is actually chemistry, and that's much more interesting to me."

"Well, it's still nice to have a hobby," Mrs. Kuroda says, "You're doing the smart thing, I think. It would be a waste of time for you to go into the arts. Even if you have a bit of talent, that kind of field just doesn't have any prestige to it."

The moment he finishes the blossom he's working on, Fuji says, "Wow, you're done. It looks so good," and steps between him and the canvas as though trying to get a better look.

"Oh, is it already finished?" Mrs. Kuroda asks, and Fuji nods.

"My half will be completed tomorrow," she says, and then turns to Makoto. "Isn't it nice to have finally finished? You won't need to come over every afternoon anymore."

"I'm sure Makoto will still want to come over," Mrs. Kuroda says, and she gives a light-hearted laugh but fixes Makoto with a look that makes him eager to leave. "You two are a couple, aren't you? You could act a bit more like it. You'll make him upset if you're always cold like this, Fuji."

"We'll have more time for that when the project is turned in," Fuji says, and Makoto nods in agreement. Slowly, he makes his way to the door, modestly deflecting Mrs. Kuroda's compliments, and eventually ends up standing outside with his school bag in one hand.

"You're welcome anytime," Mrs. Kuroda says with a wave, and he notices her other hand is resting on Fuji's shoulder not so gently, grip hard enough that the collar of her uniform is crinkling under her grasp, holding her in place. Fuji gives him the most practiced, false-looking smile he's ever had the displeasure of seeing—one that reminds him a bit of his own moments before he reminds someone just how stupid they are for believing him—and then the door shuts with an almost ominous click as Fuji is locked back inside the cloistered, floating world.

* * *

"Things have been difficult lately," Nobuo Kurita says diplomatically. He sits at the head of the table in the Disciplinary Committee meeting, as always, smiling tightly. Makoto imagines he's inwardly panicking at the missing fundraiser money scandal that suddenly cropped up during his time as committee president. He probably thinks everyone else cares as much as he and Yuudai do, considering the tone recent meetings have taken—Fuji doesn't offer nearly as much commentary as she did at the beginning of the term, Kinaka seats herself as far away from her as possible, and Makoto sits closer to Fuji than anyone else dares to keep up appearances. None of them look at each other.

"We haven't made any headway with the investigation of the fundraiser money," Yuudai says.

Nobuo shakes his head. "None of the school faculty have learned anything new, either," he says, "Let's put it behind us, and instead focus on goals for the next term."

He'll be fine, Makoto knows. His affiliation with the committee and his position is all that's going to matter when he heads off to University next year; nobody's going to care about or even remember this fundraiser crap.

"Isn't the art center hosting a contest?" Yuudai mentions towards the end of the meeting, "I'd heard about it a while ago, but I didn't think much of it. Isn't student council coordinating some kind of event with the art club for it?"

"They are," Fuji says, the first thing she's said the entire meeting, "I don't think it's necessary for us to involve ourselves in any further events this term, but if you're really curious, I will be attending the event. Would you like a report?"

"That's alright, I'll let you handle that however you'd like," Nobuo waves her off, clearly uninterested, and the topic shifts back to proposals for surprise bag inspections in the new term. When the meeting tapers off, Makoto leaves and parts ways with Fuji, who makes a beeline for the art room, but he finds he's still being followed down the hall.

"You look like a mess," Kinaka says from a few steps behind him.

He hesitates to answer, surprised she's talking to him at all after her outburst at practice days earlier. "You said you were friends with Kuroda at one point," he says after a moment, "You ever meet her parents?"

"I've seen her mom a few times. She seemed kind of weird."

"Understatement." He slows his pace, letting Kinaka walk beside him, and glances over warily.

"You're wondering if I'm still mad, right?" she scoffs, "Yeah, I'm still mad. But I'm not going to let that get in the way since you're perfectly positioned to pull the rug out from underneath Kuroda."

"You thought I was going to save you from Kuroda," Makoto says evenly, glancing at her out of the corner of her eye, "That's why you came up to me in the first place. You were feeling a lot less confident than you were letting on."

"Does thinking that make you feel more important?"

"I know I'm right, Daicho."

She frowns. "Whatever."

"I think I'm about done with the information-gathering phase," he says, "Fuji's gotten pretty relaxed around me. Sometimes, I think she forgets that we hate each other."

"You seem to forget that, too."

Makoto shrugs. "I'm a pretty convincing actor."

Kinaka raises a brow.

"You mentioned a password."

"Yeah. As long as she hasn't changed it, then I think I know what it is."

"Are you going to tell me?"

"Yeah, eventually," Kinaka says airily. She stops at the school gates, turning back to look at Makoto with narrowed eyes. "You called her by her first name just now, you know."

"Habit. We've been on a first name basis for a while now."

"Watch yourself," she warns, but she sounds more worried than angry.

Makoto gets the feeling that his ongoing rivalry with Fuji is going to come to an end very soon, and something about that is honestly disappointing.


	13. Chapter 13

The diptych hangs dead-center on the wall in the art center's temporary exhibition hall, surrounded by the other entries. A cherry blossom branch cuts across the night sky, falling petals transforming into flying geese that soar from one canvas to another, descending towards the snowy ground where their leader awaits, a pale and sad-faced woman in a kimono beckoning the others towards her. Beside it, a plaque on the wall bears Makoto and Fuji's full names, as well as the words "1st PLACE."

The two of them go up together to claim the 10,000 yen and stand side by side as someone takes photos for the local newspaper. As people filter past to look at all of the entries, Fuji glances at him out of the corner of her eye. "Where are your parents?" she asks.

"Where are yours?" he shoots back, defensive for some reason.

She doesn't answer, and they lapse into silence. Without a word to one another, they both turn to look up at the diptych. Makoto looks carefully at Fuji's half, certain he's not imagining how much her painting of Otama looks more like a self-portrait.

"It turned out pretty good," he says.

"Yeah. It did."

Makoto catches himself smiling and tries to disguise it, covering his mouth with a cough, but it doesn't go away. The art gallery is quiet and peaceful, the crowd ambling past and admiring their paintings making little noise aside from barely-audible murmuring. He's proud of his half, and proud of the work as a whole, how well it compliments Fuji's piece and how naturally it all blends together. He admits that it was fun while it lasted.

But it's over now, and any excuse he had to delay his original plans is gone.

"What are you going to do with the prize money?" he asks quietly.

"Nothing yet. I'm just going to hold onto it for a while."

"Are you saving up for something?"

"Maybe."

He sees her turn, attention fixing on him, and Makoto meets her eyes. "What?" he asks.

Her expression is that strange, gentle one she has whenever she paints, posture no longer rigid and the hints of a smile on her lips. "I was just thinking," she says, "That it's really unfortunate we had to meet like this. You're not really all that bad, Makoto."

For a long time, Makoto doesn't speak. Fuji doesn't wait for a response, turning back to the diptych, smiling openly now. She looks unabashedly happy for the first time in Makoto's memory, and it's almost infectious, almost brings a smile to his face, too.

Makoto steals another sidelong glance at Fuji Kuroda, and wonders how she can possibly say that he _"isn't all that bad."_ What have the last few weeks been about, if not trying to tear the other person down? What prompted them to get involved with each other in the first place, if it wasn't an attempt at unearthing all of the other's secrets?

Why is he standing next to her in an art gallery and feeling guilty about things he hasn't even done yet?

When he starts to wander away, Fuji doesn't stop him. She glances back at him once, meeting his eyes, and then turns away again. He's momentarily distracted by how much smaller and more vulnerable she looks like this, without all of her defenses up, but he gets that strange, eerie feeling like someone is staring at him, and he stops cold when he sees someone standing in the entryway to the temporary exhibition room.

Hands resting casually in his pockets and school bag tucked under one arm, Shouichi Imayoshi strolls in with a wide smile and makes a beeline for the display at the end of the room, gaze fixed on their painting. Makoto isn't even thinking when he moves his body, but he only realizes he's thrown himself in Shouichi's path, putting himself between the other boy and Fuji, when Shouichi stops, surprise morphing into a false smile.

"What a small world," he says and laughs light-heartedly, "I never imagined I'd run into you at the art center."

"What are you doing here?" Makoto asks, and he tries his hardest to sound like he doesn't want to punch Shouichi hard enough to shatter his glasses.

"There's a contest for local talent, isn't there?" His smile widens. "Why? Am I not allowed to see it?"

He's lying; Makoto knows he is. "You came to see Fuji."

Shouichi's smile loses any pretense of kindness and turns into a smirk. "Oh, you're _far_ too clever for me, Hanamiya, seeing through my deception so easily."

"Shut up." Makoto's eyes narrow. "Leave. I don't care if she invited you."

"I don't need an invitation to come to a public place." Shouichi looks past him. "The one on the right is yours, I assume?"

Makoto scowls. "What about it?"

"Nothing. It's not terrible. It just doesn't look like Fuji's work."

His casual address of his—_is he really thinking this?—_his "girlfriend" irks Makoto yet again, and he's mad at himself for being jealous over their meaningless, false relationship. "I didn't know you were into art."

"I'm not," Shouichi confesses, "But I'd recognize her style anywhere. She painted quite a bit when we were together. I still have a few of her landscapes."

Makoto cuts him off before he has to listen to anymore. "If she didn't invite you, then what did you want?"

He expects another quip about his lack of authority to tell him what he can and can't do, but instead, Shouichi meets his gaze again, offering a pitying smile. "Seeing you storm off with her at the practice game was amusing," he says, "I'm surprised you didn't realize she only did it to get a rise out of you, although it's clear to me now that you're far more emotionally invested in this relationship than you're likely to admit." He leers at Makoto with narrow eyes. "You like her, and I'm curious to see just how hard you fall when you have the rug ripped out from under you. If you'd like, I'm willing to offer some friendly advice."

"I don't want your fucking advice."

"No? Well, here's some anyway," Shouichi says with a chuckle, and Makoto rolls his eyes.

_Bastard likes to hear himself talk._

"From an early age, we learn to distinguish between 'in-groups' and 'out-groups;' Our circle of friends versus acquaintances, our coworkers versus our superiors, and family versus everyone else. The distinction is important behaviorally as well as linguistically."

"I don't see how that—!"

"Some people," Shouichi cuts him off sharply, "Take this more seriously than others. For instance, the Kuroda family believes that one does not simply negotiate their in-groups and out-groups based on the situation, but that there is only ever one true in-group. For them, anyone beyond the family is, and will forever be, an outsider. They'll never really be welcome or treated the same way. Chieko is rather adamant that Fuji adhere to this, lest she find herself removed from the only in-group she can call her own."

"Chieko?"

"Mrs. Kuroda." Shouichi smiles. "Don't tell me you didn't even know your girlfriend's mother's name?"

"You know, you came up in conversation once, and she didn't have anything nice to say about you."

"I hope you're not insinuating that I'm lying, Hanamiya," Shouichi says with mock insult, "I'm speaking from experience, after all."

"So, what, you're saying Fuji's afraid of getting kicked out?"

"Hmm," Shouichi says, "More like disowned."

"For what? For having friends and being normal?"

He shrugs. "For letting it get in the way of her studies, presumably. Chieko keeps her on a tight leash at all times, but especially if it has something to do with academics. She's not as clever as she thinks she is, though, or she'd know people tend to rebel under those sorts of conditions."

"I don't care about any of this," Makoto says, but Shouichi's gaze grows sharp.

"Oh, really? You seem awfully interested to me, but if I'm boring you, I can stop."

"Why are you even telling me this stuff? Are you interested in her again?"

"Don't worry, Hanamiya, her family is enough of a deterrent to keep me away," he says, "Though I'm interested to see which of the two of you will still be standing when the dust settles."

"Oh, there he is. Makoto!" someone calls, and he's tense immediately, gaze shifting to just over Shouichi's shoulder. There are two women standing in the entryway to the exhibition hall, one of which is Chieko, conspicuously dressed up in a manner not dissimilar to her daughter at the practice game with a designer bag on one arm. She's waving as though there's any way Makoto might miss her.

Next to her is Makoto's mother.

Shouichi makes himself scarce in the few moments it takes for them to cross the room, but he notices the way Chieko's gaze trails after him, eyes narrowing like a hawk watching a mouse scurry away. She turns her attention back to him a broad smile and he pretends he didn't notice. "It's so good to see you! I know it's only been a few days since you finished the project, but I just got so used to having you around that's a bit lonely. Fuji misses having you over, too." She pauses, glancing across the room. "And there's Fuji," she says fondly, smiling at her daughter's back.

Makoto glances at her, watching as she walks over, and he sees the way Fuji goes rigid when she hears her name called in that familiar voice, how she slowly turns around and greets her mother stiffly, all of her passion hidden deep inside where her mother can't criticize her for it.

"I had no idea this is what you were working on," Makoto's mother says quietly at his side. He turns to find her beaming proudly, gazing at his school project as though it's the Mona Lisa. She looks ordinary compared to Chieko in a plain blouse and khakis, dark hair parted down the middle and simply combed to either side of her face, but Makoto is thankful that his mother's smile is real. "I don't even know how to describe it; it's beautiful, Makoto."

"Mine's on the right," he says.

"I know. I can tell." Her smile widens. "You used to love art class."

"Yeah."

"So that's Fuji? She's very pretty; she takes after her mother, it seems. Mrs. Kuroda is very nice."

Makoto gives her a sidelong glance. "Yeah," he repeats carefully, wondering if she honestly believes that, but her gaze has shifted to what Makoto thinks is the least natural mother-daughter interaction he's ever seen in his life, as Chieko awkwardly praises the painting she clearly thinks is worthless and Fuji accepts the backhanded compliments without a hint of emotion.

_Look at them,_ he thinks, _Do you seriously think that woman is nice? You think she gives a shit about this contest that Fuji worked so hard to win? You think she cares about Fuji's happiness at all?_

Maybe it isn't fair of him to assume that; he knows more than she does about Chieko and Fuji, after all. But even if he told her everything, part of him doubts it would make a difference. He looks up at his mother, and something inside of him is pained at how happy she looks. _You always have liked pleasant lies better than unpleasant truths, even when the evidence is right in front of you._

"Why don't you have Fuji over sometime?" his mother asks, "I know the Winter Cup is just around the corner, so you should spend some time together before you get wrapped up in practice."

"I don't know," Makoto says, and tries to come up with an excuse as quickly as possible, "We haven't really been dating all that long. I don't want to make her uncomfortable."

"I don't think you would. Your father and I don't have to be around, if that's what you're worried about."

"He's not usually around anyway," Makoto says.

His mother smiles at the floor. "When I told him you liked a girl from school, he seemed happy," she says quietly.

Makoto takes a deep breath. "I guess I can ask her."

He receives a brilliant smile in response and walks over to Chieko and Fuji slowly, leaving his mother to admire the painting on the wall. He hears a few words as he comes closer, Fuji's mother warning her not to "_get any ideas_" or "_slack off just because some people think you can paint a picture, you don't honestly think that's a respectable career, do you_?" He clears his throat when he's within arm's reach, and Chieko turns, her scowl hidden by the time she's facing him.

"Makoto, Fuji was just saying she was hoping you two would get to spend more time together," she says.

Makoto glances at Fuji standing off to the side behind her, staring at the floor like she wants it to swallow her whole. He's known all along that they have a lot in common, but he feels for the first time like he's really staring into a mirror, looking at someone who fights desperately for control because they have none and thinking about all of the people he's broken on the way to momentary happiness. Fuji is just as twisted and flawed and vulnerable as he is, and it would be so easy to break her. He knows exactly where to hit, because his weaknesses are nearly identical.

But he isn't sure he can do it anymore.

"I was hoping we could, too," he says finally, and Fuji meets his eyes, confusion evident on her face.

_Why are you still playing this game with me?_ she must be thinking. Makoto doesn't know, but he can't seem to stop.

"So why don't you come over sometime this weekend?"

The eagerness on Chieko's face tells him that Fuji doesn't really have a choice, but to his surprise, Fuji looks relieved, maybe even excited. "I'd love to," she says, and even though she's smiling, there's something odd about it, something desperate.

Makoto is both relieved that he can spend some time away from Chieko's prying eyes and terrified to be going into the situation completely blind. Every meeting before now has been carefully calculated, every action with an ulterior motive behind it, whether it was to gather more information about Fuji to use against her or ingratiate himself with her mother. Now he has no plan in mind, no goal in sight, and no idea what he's doing.

He smiles, and he's sure his must look a bit off, too. Otama looks down at them from the painting, gaze pitying, as though they are the ones trapped in a canvas, wild geese with their wings clipped.


	14. Chapter 14

"It's 'Formerly Setsuko,' by the way."

Makoto stops in the middle of the hallway when Kinaka brushes past with a whisper, and glances back over his shoulder at her. "What?"

She pauses mid-stride and gives a heavy sigh before she turns to look at him. "The password," she says, "You seriously forgot?"

"I didn't forget."

"Sure you didn't." Her tone softens. "Heard you won that art contest."

"Yeah?"

"I went to see the painting. It was really sad." She pauses, looking away. "Are you still gonna do it?"

"Do what?"

"Ruin Kuroda."

Makoto frowns. "That's what I've been working towards this whole time." Kinaka doesn't say anything. "Having second thoughts? I thought this was what you wanted, too."

"Hanamiya," Kinaka says with surprising seriousness, "Did you ever think that when I approached you, I didn't really want you to help _me_?"

"Then you came to the wrong person."

"I don't think I did."

He lets her have the last word only because he becomes lost in thought. She has to be bluffing; he knows Kinaka wanted his help to get away from Fuji. That's how all of this started, didn't it? Kinaka couldn't have possibly thought he would want to help anyone, especially with how much trouble they've both given him. Then again, he thinks, watching Kinaka walk away, her motives have never been extremely transparent. It makes him wonder just how devoted Kinaka was to their friendship, how far she'd be willing to go to help Fuji. Does she intend to pick up the pieces when Fuji loses everything?

He doesn't want to believe she thought that far ahead. That implies all sorts of things, but mostly that she was able to read him from the beginning, knowing he and Fuji had a lot in common long before the thought even occurred to him.

* * *

Makoto finds Fuji waiting patiently for him by the school's front gates, finding her with her posture straight and her shoulders tense; retreating back behind her shell to fight her nervousness, he bets. Neither of them ever had any intention to go to Makoto's, and he was thankful for that.

"Fuji," he greets with a nod.

She returns it with one of her own. "Makoto." She's carrying an extra bag over her shoulder, something like what the athletic teams carry for their uniforms. He doesn't ask.

They walk back to his house, in the opposite direction from Fuji's, in total silence. Makoto keeps trying to think of things to talk about it and then wonders why it matters. Sometimes he catches Fuji glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, pursing her lips like she wants to say something, but she never does.

Makoto watches the way Fuji's eyes examine the plate with his family's surname affixed to the brick wall in front of the house as he opens the gate for her. He mumbles, "I'm home," when they walk in the front door, but his mother still appears in the entryway with a wide smile.

"Welcome home, you two," she greets warmly. Makoto notices her watching Fuji carefully, gauging her reaction as she slips off her shoes and walks further into the house. He isn't sure what she's looking for. "I wasn't sure what you'd like to eat, so I bought a few different snacks. Help yourself to whatever you'd like."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hanamiya," Fuji says, and attempts a smile. It must be good enough for Makoto's mother, because she beams and disappears into the next room. With his mother gone, Fuji glances over at him uneasily. "Well," she says quietly, hesitating to think, "What…what did you want to do?"

Makoto shrugs. "I didn't really have anything in mind."

They both stand in the entryway, avoiding each other's gazes, before Makoto proposes they study together and leads her up the stairs. Makoto's home is much less western than Fuji's, and he glances back, watching her expression, as he opens the sliding door that leads to his room. A plate of the store-bought cookies is waiting on his desk beside a couple of framed newspaper clippings with photos of Kirisaki Daiichi's basketball team. He sees her eyes drawn to them and clears his throat self-consciously.

"Is there anything in particular you want to work on?" he asks, opening his closet to drag out a couple of floor cushions. Fuji sinks onto one and sets down her bag, surprising him with her answer.

"No," she says, "I don't really want to study right now." She looks up at him as he goes to get the cookie plate and set it on the floor between them. "Is that alright?"

He stares in disbelief. "Well, yeah," he says, "I just didn't expect that."

"There are other things I like to do," she says, and unzips her extra bag, pulling out a sketchbook and a few pencils. Makoto sees a canvas and paints inside and wants to laugh at the thought of her smuggling art supplies over, but the fact that she has to do it at all makes him unable to. "Your mother seems nice."

"Nice than yours, at least."

Fuji glances at him and he wonders for half a second if she's offended, but instead, she laughs. "Well, of course." She returns her attention to her sketchbook, starting to doodle something, so Makoto reaches for the nearest notebook and opens to a blank page, starting to draw a bird.

"People are still talking about the paintings we did," he says absently.

"Hm."

"You really are good. It looked like it could have belonged in the permanent gallery."

"Thank you." She pauses, looking at him again. "Have you ever heard of Seiko Okuhara?"

Makoto shakes his head.

"She's my biggest inspiration. Here," she says, and reaches for her school bag on her other side, pulling out a laptop computer. Makoto can't see the screen when she first opens it, but he listens for the number of keystrokes she makes right away, wondering what characters she uses to spell "Setsuko."

It occurs to him that Kinaka didn't say. He wonders if she even expected him to try.

Fuji turns the computer around in her lap, showing him an image search with rows of little paintings. Most of them, he notices, are of birds, ravens and warblers, and the colors are subdued, if present at all. He's struck by the resemblance he sees to Fuji's work. "You can see where I got my inspiration from, right?" she asks, and he nods. "Okuhara was a Meiji-era painter. She wanted her talent to be recognized, so she cut her hair and dressed like a man. She even changed her birth name to Seiko, so people who saw her signature probably couldn't tell if the artist was a man or a woman." She turns the computer back around and looks down at the screen fondly. "There's a small school called Okuhara Arts not too far away, named in her honor. I'd love to go there."

"Then, you should," Makoto says, but hesitates when she looks at him. He doesn't know why he feels nervously suddenly. "You don't usually let anything get in your way when you want something."

Fuji smiles sadly. "Ah. Usually."

They both lapse into silence when they hear footsteps coming up the stairs, and a moment later, the door slides open and Makoto's mother pokes her head in. "Dinner's ready," she says, "You're more than welcome to join us, Fuji. I made mackerel and soup. Ah, I should have asked what you'd like first…."

"No, that's alright," Fuji says. Makoto notices her straighten up and push her sketchbook under her bag, as though afraid his mother will see it and—and what? Care? "Thank you for the invitation, I'd love to have dinner." She's back to her rigid self, and Makoto thinks his mother must notice, but she seems undaunted, smile as bright as usual as she nods and turns to leave.

Fuji goes to the trouble of gathering her art supplies and hiding them in her bag again before going downstairs, and Makoto almost tells her she doesn't need to but he isn't sure his word would make any difference. They head back down to the kitchen and find Makoto's mother has placed their plates next to each other at the table.

"So, how's school?" his mother asks cheerfully across from them, settling down in her chair.

"Same as always, "Makoto shrugs.

"Fine," Fuji says stiffly.

His mother moves some rice around on her plate with her chopsticks, and Makoto can see her thinking, trying to come up with a different approach. "The first round of the Winter Cup is next weekend, isn't it?" she says, "Are you looking forward to it?"

"Kind of," Makoto says neutrally, swallowing a mouthful of rice, "Hara's been slacking off lately. I'm not sure he's going to be able to pull his own weight."

"I'm sure he'll be fine," his mother says, "You know how Kazuya is. He acts like he isn't paying attention, but he usually is."

Fuji glances between them curiously. "Do you see your teammates outside of practice often?"

"Sometimes," Makoto says, but his mother smiles.

"They're over a lot, especially Kentarou. The two of them are practically brothers." She pauses. "Although he hasn't been by much lately."

_Ever since Kinaka and Fuji showed up, _Makoto knows. He told them to keep their distance so he could focus for a while, mostly because he didn't want them to know just how bothered he was.

"And how about this business with your award-winning painting?" his mother says, looking at Fuji pointedly in the hopes that she'll speak up, "Aren't you excited?"

Fuji blinks. "Excited about what?"

"The art center wants to keep it up for a while and move it to the 'contemporary artists' hall." She looks confused. "They should have contacted your mother. Maybe she forgot to tell you."

Makoto tries not to roll his eyes. He's certain that if the art center called, Chieko chose not to answer.

"Are you considering art school? It'd be a shame if you didn't do something with that talent."

Fuji's gaze shifts to the table, and she nervously pokes at her half-eaten mackerel. "I'm not that talented. Art school isn't very practical, anyway," she says, the words sounding rehearsed. She glances up as though checking for Makoto's mother's reaction, and he realizes as he looks between them that she thinks his mother will tell Chieko about this later.

"Fuji," his mother says in almost a scolding tone, "You can't worry about being practical all the time. That doesn't leave much room for what you love, does it?" Fuji looks shocked by her words, staring silently across the table. "Now, I don't know much about this sort of thing, but I did look up a few Japanese artists, because I was sure your painting reminded me of something I'd seen before. Makoto, yours had a lot of really heavy, dark lines, but it was still very graceful. It looks like something Sansetsu Kanou."

"Oh, that's true," Fuji says, suddenly animated, "I thought that, too, while we were working on it."

"I don't think you should compare my paint splatters to an actual artist," Makoto says, "I did a crooked branch and a bunch of geese."

"Makoto," his mother chides, and he didn't realize they were both going to get a lecture, "Don't talk so badly about your own work. You and Fuji both worked very hard, and it shows."

"Mostly Fuji. The birds were a little lopsided before she got to them."

He gets a withering glare in response. "Now, Fuji," she says, shifting her attention, "I found a few artists that yours reminded me of, but the birds really made me think of Seiko Okuhara. It was much softer than Makoto's piece, but it was just as good."

Fuji's eyes widen and a trembling smile overtakes her features. Makoto imagines being compared to her favorite artist is almost overwhelming. "You really think so?"

"Of course! Have you seen Okuhara's work?"

"Yes," Fuji says eagerly, "She's my favorite!" She freezes suddenly, covering her mouth with one hand as though embarrassed by her own outburst.

Makoto's mother's gaze softens. "Well, I don't know much about her," she says, gently urging her to say more, "It's difficult to find information on historic female artists."

Fuji repeats what she told Makoto earlier with a few added details, more cautious than before but clearly excited. Makoto doesn't interrupt, watching silently from beside Fuji. She looks so much more approachable, like a real person rather than a robot trying to pretend it's human, the way she always acts everywhere else.

She smiles when his mother tries describing other artists she looked up, most of whom she can't remember the names of, and his heart beats a little faster.

"Thank you so much for dinner," Fuji says when they finish eating and retreat back up the stairs, and Makoto shuts the door behind him and stares in disbelief at Fuji as she goes to sit on one of the floor cushions, looking relaxed.

"I don't get it," he says.

She freezes, hand in her bag reaching for her sketchbook. "What do you mean?"

"You fight so hard at school," he says, "You lie, you steal, you set other people up to take the fall. I get that your family is insane, but you're smart, Fuji, you could figure something out, couldn't you?"

She looks up at him from her seat on the floor, and he sees her smile vanishing, sees her pulling inward again, and he's almost angry. _Don't you dare hide from me,_ he thinks, _I know you, I know the real you. _

"You obviously want to go to art school," he continues, "I've only seen one of your paintings, but I only need to see one to know you'd get in. So go."

"I can't."

"Why, because your mother won't let you? Fuck her, go anyway. She can't stop you from applying."

"Makoto—!"

"It pisses me off," he says, dropping onto the floor beside her, "You're a total hard ass at school, you send people scurrying when you walk down the hall, and I get that it's not the way you want to be, but you're obviously not a weakling. When Chieko just bitches at you about how dumb it is to paint and you just stand there and take it, it…." He stops, taking a deep breath. "I don't know why, but it makes me mad."

Fuji doesn't say anything, glancing down at her sketchbook in her bag. She picks it up, staring down at the brown cover thoughtfully. "They're all I have," she says quietly.

"They wouldn't be, if you'd make friends. Whatever happened to Daicho?"

"Her grades weren't very good. My parents told me I couldn't talk to her anymore."

"And you just said, 'sure?'"

"You think I'm happy like this?!" Fuji yells, sketchbook clattering to the floor, "You think I like living with them, letting them control my life? I hate it! I hate every second of it! I don't have a single moment of privacy or anything that I can really enjoy. Nothing belongs to me, not even my own time. It wouldn't matter if I made friends; they'd never really be there for me."

"Did Chieko tell you that?" Makoto fires back, "She tell you that your blood family is all you'll ever have, and that no one else is ever going to accept you? And you believed her?"

Fuji opens her mouth to speak but no sound comes out. She looks away.

"I was like you once, but for different reasons," Makoto says, "I didn't have any friends. I didn't think it mattered; 'friends' are just shallow people who pretend to be there for you to look good. I believed that, too."

He reaches forward, picking up Fuji's sketchbook and opening the front cover. The first image is a gaggle of geese standing together beneath a tree, playfully jabbing at each other with their beaks. "Then I joined the basketball team," he says, "There were these unmotivated, lazy losers who hung around and talked shit about everyone else's playing but barely practiced themselves. They didn't have many friends, either." He smiles. "Somehow, we started spending a lot of time together." He hands Fuji her sketchbook and their hands brush against each other. "I'm trying to say that I kind of get what it's like," he says, "So I wouldn't buy into whatever Chieko says. You heard Mom talking over dinner, right? You're not an outsider here."

Fuji sets her sketchbook in her lap and looks down at it again. She doesn't say anything back. Makoto thinks she must be trying to decide whether or not she believes him. He goes back to doodling in his notebook, glad to see her doing the same not long after, and the two of them stay just like that, silent in each other's company, for the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

"It's dark out," Makoto says later, "Mom'll want me to walk you home."

Fuji looks up from her paper in disappointment but begins to pack her things away. "Your father never came home."

"He never does."

Fuji looks at him, waiting for elaboration.

Makoto frowns. "I don't really think of him as my father," he says, "Just the guy that got my mom pregnant who drops in from time to time."

"Oh."

"He's a public official. He's run for governor once. I see him on TV sometimes."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he mutters, "We're better off without him."

They make their way to the front door, where Makoto's mother is waiting for them with a small box in her hands. "I'm not sure if it'd be of much use to you," she says, holding it out to Fuji, "But I've had this for a few years and never used it, so I thought you might be interested."

Fuji hesitantly take the box, lifting off the lid. Makoto leans over and sees an expensive-looking calligraphy pen inside.

"An artist needs to sign their name, right?" she says light-heartedly.

Fuji slowly slides the lid back on the box, clutching it with both hands. Makoto waits for her to try to give it back saying she can't keep it or couldn't possibly accept something so nice.

The first tear that rolls down her cheek comes as a shock. Fuji rubs at her face with her sleeve, but her cries soon turn to sobs.

"Fuji?" Makoto's mother calls anxiously, glancing at Makoto as if he knows what to do. "What's wrong?"

Fuji just shakes her head, unable to answer.

Makoto realizes that their game has finally come end, and he can't say with any certainty that either of them won or lost; he thinks they're just not interested in playing anymore. The same person who deceived and blackmailed him is standing in the entryway of his home crying, and revenge isn't on his mind at all.

He wraps his arms around Fuji Kuroda and she clings to him like a child, sobbing into his chest, and the only thing he can think of is how much he doesn't want to walk her home.


	15. Chapter 15

**It was a bit of a struggle for me to return to fanfiction after being away for so long, but I really wanted to finish this. Thank you for your interest and continued support!**

* * *

About a month ago, Makoto remembers that there was this girl on the Disciplinary Committee who was the bane of his existence, always being obnoxious and sticking her nose into other people's business, and he was sure he was going to destroy her. That girl, he's discovered, doesn't really exist. She's the product of unhappiness and distrust, a reflexive defense mechanism invented by someone with a soft heart.

Makoto doesn't remember when he first understood that, but now it's impossible to see Fuji Kuroda the same way. They've finally moved on in literature class from _The Wild Geese_, but Fuji still answers most of the questions, hand shooting up the second the teacher stops talking. He doesn't see her as a stuck up know-it-all anymore, though; he thinks she sounds tired when she answers. When the lunch break starts, he thinks about saying something to her, but she gets up to leave immediately and avoids his gaze.

When Kinaka Daicho pokes her head into the classroom, Makoto is certain he already knows what she wants to talk about, and before she even slides into the recently vacated seat in front of him, he says, "I didn't do it."

"Do what?" she asks, looking confused.

"You know what."

At that, the corners of her lips quirk upward. "Duh. I knew you wouldn't."

"You knew?"

"Of course. I play to win, Hanamiya. You're a big risk, but I wouldn't have ever relied on you this much if I didn't think you'd pull through in the end."

Makoto frowns. "So this whole time, you were counting on me feeling sorry for her?"

"I was counting on you finding out that you have a lot in common."

"How'd you know we had anything in common?"

"I'm good at reading people." She shrugs. "And I guess you remind me of her in some ways."

"She did her homework on you, too."

Makoto whirls around, startled by the third voice in the conversation, and finds Fuji standing over both of them, a solemn look on her face. Kinaka looks legitimately terrified.

"I assume you tried to learn about me before you approached me," she continues calmly, "And I can assure you that Kinaka took the time to learn about you. I'm sure she pulled your student records and found out about your unfortunate family circumstances, which she probably connected to your undesirable personality."

Makoto glances back at Kinaka, but she still won't look up.

"Incidentally, I also overheard the two of you talking in the hall the day before I came over." Her gaze flicks over from Makoto to Kinaka and back again. "Discussing my computer password and 'ruining me.'"

Makoto stands from his desk. "That wasn't—!"

Kinaka jumps to her feet behind him. "I put him up to it," she cuts him off. "It's been me from the beginning, Kuroda. I threatened him, so he didn't have any choice."

"Don't lie, Daicho," he snaps, "That wasn't all you."

"Will you both shut up?" Fuji snaps, "I'm not stupid; I know you were both in on it." Her gaze softens, and Makoto sees the real Fuji for the first time at school, completely unguarded and sincere, as she looks at Kinaka. "You were trying to help me, in your own ridiculous way. You've been trying to help me since junior high. You forgave me for treating you so horribly and ignored the way I tried to push you away. I'm sorry, Kinaka. You've been my friend all this time, despite everything."

At the use of her first name, Kinaka's eyes widen. "Come on," she says, trying to brush it off nonchalantly, "Don't go ruining your image now. I don't think Kirisaki Daiichi could handle it if they lost their most productive Disciplinary Committee member."

Fuji smiles and Kinaka grins back at her. Makoto has never seen either of them look so genuinely happy, and he thought it would look weird, but it looks right.

"And Makoto," she says, but then stops, face flushed, "I mean, Hanamiya. Sorry."

"What are you apologizing for?" he asks gruffly, looking away from her, "We spent so long fake-dating that I don't know if I could go back to calling you 'Kuroda.'"

"I understand if you still hold animosity towards me for my behavior before," she says, bowing her head slightly, "And I'm sorry for that, as well. I hope you can forgive me."

Makoto stares, unsure of what to say back. "Okay?"

"Don't waste time on us," Kinaka pipes up, "You've still got one other person to apologize to, don't you?"

Fuji nods, glancing at the clock on the wall. "I'll try to find him with what's left of our lunch break," she says, excusing herself with a small bow. Makoto watches the classroom door shut behind her, lost in thought.

"This isn't over, you know," Kinaka says, "Her parents could ruin all of this."

He glances at her. "That's not really my business, is it?"

She lets out an exasperated sigh. "I can't believe you think you can lie to my face and get away with it. You obviously like her, Hanamiya."

He doesn't immediately deny it, because that would look bad, but he obviously doesn't agree, either. Instead, he raises a brow asking, "I thought you….?"

Kinaka rests one elbow on the desk to lean her head against her hand, leering up at him. "You thought I what? Liked you or something? It never occurred to you that I might be trying to lead you on for the sake of the plan?"

He frowns. "Pretending to like me has nothing to do with helping Fuji."

"Believe whatever you want." She waves her hand dismissively and stands from the desk, leaving to go back to her own classroom. "But, for the record," she calls, one hand on the classroom door as she looks back at him over her shoulder, "I've been over you for a while now."

* * *

The entire team is lazing around as usual when Makoto arrives, but Kazuya is quick to jump to his feet, sighing, "So it's finally over, huh?"

"What?"

"Your feud with Kuroda."

Makoto quickly glances over his teammates and finds Koujirou looking out of sorts, so he crosses his arms and waits for an explanation. "She came in a minute ago," he finally mumbles, "To apologize."

Makoto nods. "Yeah," he says, "It's over." He gestures for Hiroshi to throw him the ball and catches it with a frown. "So now that there aren't any distractions remaining, you lazy assholes are going to start practicing again," he continues ominously, "If you can't even pull off a Spider's Web by the time the Winter Cup gets here, I'm not going to be happy."

There are a few grumbles of protest, but his teammates start to spread themselves into formation. Makoto glances almost expectantly at the door to the gymnasium and then wonders why, but when he catches a glimpse of Fuji Kuroda standing in the hall, waiting for him, he realizes his heart is beating faster and that not everything is back to normal. He tries to ignore her, or pretend she isn't there, or just stop thinking about it, but his thoughts keep straying to wondering what she wants, what they have left to discuss now.

Practice goes too slowly, but when it's finally over, he throws the ball at Kazuya without giving him a warning—and he hears it collide with the back of his head but doesn't really care to look back—and approaches Fuji.

"You need something?" he asks gruffly.

She adjusts her glasses. By now, he recognizes it as a nervous habit. "I wanted to ask if you're going to be busy tonight."

He's too surprised to answer for a moment. His first instinct is to lie, because he doesn't like how uncomfortable and awkward and out of his element he's feeling all of the sudden, but he can't quite force one from his lips. "Why?" he asks instead.

Fuji looks away. He notices again the extra bag over her shoulder. "I'd like to come over."

"Oh."

She hesitates a moment, waiting for him to say something else, but when he doesn't, she asks, "Is that okay?"

Makoto has been caught off-guard again, suddenly finding himself in a situation where he doesn't have a plan. Their effort to outwit each other has come to an end, and now they're just two people who happen to know far too much about the other person. It all makes him nervous, but also a little curious.

"Maybe," he says.

"I'd appreciate an opportunity to get some painting done for my portfolio," she says, "The more I get done, the more I can think realistically about Okuhara Arts. It might preoccupy my thoughts so much that I simply forget to ask Kinaka to record your Winter Cup matches."

Makoto's eyes narrow. "Are you bargaining with me?"

Fuji smiles. It's sharp and confident, but also a little bit playful. "Are you willing to bargain?"

He finds himself returning the smile. "But of course." This is closer to familiar territory, he thinks, something that feels like another game. This one doesn't seem to have any real risks, and it's more like they're having a practice match with one another than a proper competition, but it's with Fuji Kuroda, and that makes it interesting.

As they leave together, the rest of the team begins to pack their things.

"Wasn't expecting that," Hiroshi mutters, "They were at each other's throat the whole time, weren't they? When did this happen?"

Koujiou shakes his head. "It makes sense," he says, "They're a lot alike."

"Looks like you were wrong, Hara," Kentarou says, shoving the other boy, "You thought Captain'd end up with someone even worse than him, but it turns out she wasn't all that bad."

Kazuya grins. "I was just joking," he drawls, "Captain's the same as her; he just likes to pretend to be a bad guy."

* * *

Life at Kirisaki Daiichi never does quite return to normal.

At a glance, everything seems the same. The Disciplinary Committee remains a near-omnipotent and omnipresent force of justice that strikes when troublemakers least expect it. Nobuo Kurita is an overly-lenient voice of reason, Yuudai Natsume is an eager administrator of bag checks, and Kinaka Daicho continues to chew gum and file her nails during meetings. Fuji Kuroda no longer brings Makoto Hanamiya boxed lunches nor does she follow him around everywhere.

But some things are still a bit off.

Sometimes, a group of students might be caught smoking in the bathroom, and Fuji will appear in the doorway with a glare that has them all begging to be left off with a warning, and she'll be halfway to writing a note for their homeroom teachers to send home to their parents when suddenly Makoto will intervene.

"There's no reason to be that hard on them, is there, Kuroda?" he'll ask with a wide smile, "After all, they're not usually up to anything bad. This is the first time they've ever broken any rules, right?" The students will nod eagerly, and Fuji will frown but miraculously back down.

"If it happens again," she'll start to say, but Makoto will wave her off and vouch on their behalf, and then she'll leave and the students will think they're off the hook.

Which is when Makoto's smile will suddenly take on an unnerving edge and he'll ask what they think his silence is worth.

"Did you know," Kinaka asks, leaning against the wall during their lunch break, "That someone actually complained that the Disciplinary Committee is abusing its power?"

"I've heard no such thing," Fuji says, and even with her face a carefully a neutral mask, Makoto hears a smile in her words.

"I overheard one of the teachers mention it to Kurita. I think he's not gonna follow up on it, though, he's too busy studying for his university entrance exam."

"What a shame," Makoto says smoothly, "Sounds like a real scandal."

Kinaka glances between them almost warily. "This is way worse than before," she says, "You're bad enough on your own, but you're just terrible using that tag-team strategy. Even upperclassmen are afraid of you two." She grins. "You've gotta let me in on this."

Makoto shakes his head. "Sorry, Daicho, but this is a two-person gig."

"Is this how you two bond? You bully and extort people together?"

"As far as our peers are concerned," Fuji says, "We broke up already."

Kinaka rolls her eyes. "Yeah, with that extremely public and ridiculous-sounding break up over lunch last week. I've never heard something that sounded so fake, Kuroda, and I've had the displeasure of talking to your mother."

"It did what it needed to do," Makoto says.

"Yeah, I guess. Do you really have time to be running around harassing people right now? The Winter Cup's going to be here soon. Who are you guys playing?"

"I don't care," Makoto scoffs with disinterest, "Some garbage team, probably."

"You call every team a garbage team."

"Because they are."

"Are you going?" Fuji asks.

Kinaka shrugs. "Maybe. Hara invited me."

"And you said yes?"

"I said maybe," Kinaka snaps, sounding embarrassed. "What about you? Are you even allowed to go? Does your mom let you waste time on boys you aren't dating?"

"Of course not," Fuji says, "But I still might go."

Makoto can't help but smile.

"She's gonna be pissed," Kinaka warns.

"I know," Fuji says, "But it's just a small act of defiance. I have to start somewhere."

"Alternatively, you could wait until the end of your senior year to start acting out," Makoto suggests, "Then tell her you're moving out and going to art school; I bet she'd just short-circuit. I want to be there to see it, actually."

"I could," Fuji agrees, "But I think that might be harder. I think taking small steps is a better idea."

Kinaka nods. "Just don't get kicked out too soon."

Fuji opens her mouth and starts to say something about how she's been quietly saving money, but Makoto says, without really thinking, "She'd have somewhere to go," and only realizes what's just come out of his mouth when Kinaka and Fuji both stare at him in shock.

"Now _that_ would be scandalous," Kinaka laughs, "You two just can't behave, can you? Kirisaki Daiichi is never going to recover."

"It'll just have to get used to us," Makoto shrugs, trying to play off his embarrassment.

Fuji glances at him and gives a tiny, grateful smile, too small and too brief for any passersby to catch.

But Makoto sees it, and the feeling it gives him convinces him that there's nothing to be embarrassed about.


End file.
